


Into the Greenwood

by doctornerdington



Category: Maurice - E. M. Forster, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Adaptation, Drug Use, Inspired by Novel, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-05-30 01:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15085676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctornerdington/pseuds/doctornerdington
Summary: In the early years of the twentieth century, young Oxford student Sherlock Holmes comes of age – and falls in love for the first time. Is he brave enough to learn the lessons of the heart? Or will caution and fear hold him captive forever?Published in six parts, with updates most Sundays throughout the summer.Adapted from the novel Maurice by E.M. Forster. Some of the text (and most of the plot) is taken directly from that source.





	1. Part One

**April, 1902**

Once a term during the school year, Mycroft Holmes came down from Oxford to visit his younger brother at Winchester College where the boy spent the greater part of his year, and had since he was five years old. The only exceptions were a fortnight in France each August and five vaguely uncomfortable days over Christmas at the Holmes family estate. Holmes _fils_ the elder invariably took Sherlock out for a walk, preferring to spend as little time as possible in the hallowed halls that had housed so many of his own boyhood indignities. It was usually a pleasant outing. Sherlock was a solemn, solitary child, much given to long stretches of silent contemplation. He was not lonely, he told himself—he simply preferred his own company to anyone else’s. Still, although he had no friends to speak of at school, he was tremendously fond of his brother, who was indeed more like a parent to him than his own well-meaning but distant mother and father. Both Mycroft and Sherlock looked forward to their occasional meetings, though neither would ever admit as much aloud.

Lest discipline should suffer, the outings invariably took place just before the end of term, when leniency does no harm. Mycroft usually arranged to take Sherlock out to a tea place, behaving in as hospitable and fatherly a manner as his years could manage. Mycroft, though barely an adult himself, was old-fashioned sort. He cared neither for emotions nor the games of youth, but only for the intellectual development of his rather exceptional brother. The rest he left to Sherlock himself, and did not speculate as to whether or not a boy could reasonably be left to see to his own emotional and moral development. Indeed, it was at public school that Sherlock received upon undefended flesh the first blows of social indifference and cruelty. Still, there is much to be said for apathy in education, and if Mycroft’s pedagogy left something to be desired, perhaps he did not do badly in the long run.

On this occasion, Mycroft had come down to Winchester with the express desire to have a "good talk" with Sherlock. The headmaster had requested this as a special favour, following several subtle yet concerning reports about some of the the boy’s stranger and more misanthropic tendencies. Knowing that Holmes _père_ was unlikely to intervene in any matter short of the boy’s actual death, he had written to Mycroft in a fit of exasperated despair that was familiar to intimates of the Holmes family. The headmaster had had many such talks with Mycroft himself early on in their acquaintance, and never quite considered the matter to have been dealt with satisfactorily. "Thin ice," he had said many times, and Mycroft had eventually taken the warning to heart. While never changing his habits substantively, he became at least adept at pretense. He was unsurprised to discover that his brother displayed similar qualities, and wrote at once to invite him out for tea.

From this to the boys, the halls crammed with their noise and smells, and Sherlock standing aloof, quite alone. "Sir, are you here for Holmes...? Sir, take me along! Sir, take me! Oh sir, did you hear that? Rush says the Headmaster’s on his way! ... I didn't! Green eye! Green eye! When you have quite finished—! Sir! Take us, sir! We haven’t had our tea yet! Oh please, sir!”

"I'm going to walk out with Holmes alone." There were cries of disappointment. The older boys, seeing that it was no good, called the pack off, and marshaled the younger back to class. Sherlock, with ostentatious nonchalance, slouched to Mycroft’s side. He was a slender, pretty lad, gangly and awkwardly tall. In this, too, he resembled his brother, who had passed in the procession almost ten years before, and vanished into university and then to the public service.

"Well, Sherlock, expecting a scolding, are you?" Mycroft asked as they began to walk.

Sherlock stayed a carefully-measured half-step behind Mycroft, and made no response.

"Headmaster fears you have the makings of an inveterate sinner; did you know?" Sherlock felt he was meant to laugh at this, but did not take his cue. He rather thought it was the truth.

"What did he say?" he asked at last. A long talk threatened, and the boy knew there would be no way to put Mycroft off.

"He wishes you to be more like our father, and less like me."

"Oh. Is that all. He told me so himself last week." Their father was an esteemed Old Boy of the College, and the brothers were well used to living in his shadow.

"It’s a rather more important point than you seem to realize. Did you think to ask how, exactly, you were to emulate father? Or what qualities of mine you were to eschew?"

"All kinds of things, I should expect."

Mycroft pursed his lips. "Yes. Yes, indeed. But did he give you specific examples?"

"No."

"Did you ask him?"

Sherlock paused. "No." Why on earth hadn’t he?

"That wasn't very sensible of you. You must always seek clear understanding. But never-mind. I am here now to answer any questions you might have.” Mycroft paused, carefully choosing his words. There followed a lengthy discourse on the importance of social intercourse, the necessity of compromise, and suggested methods for feigning interest in other children in order to make friends.

Sherlock looked at him, aghast. “Friends? You know what the boys are like, Mycroft. Slow as slugs and dull to boot.” He did not add “cruel” and “violent” to his list of complaints, taking that as read. “Why on earth would I wish to spend a single second more than I must in their company?”

“Because it is politic to do so, brother. Only that. It will save you a world of trouble in your life. Already, headmaster has spoken to me about you—spare yourself the aggravation of his ongoing concern, and feign a friendship or two. Join in!” He spoke the words with distaste. “Believe me when I tell you: I speak from experience. It is always expedient to appear to be as unremarkable and average as possible. You have the entire freedom of your mind to enjoy at your leisure when you simply allow the surface of your being to conform to the idiotic expectations of others.”

Sherlock nodded uncertainly. Something about Mycroft’s advice stirred a pang of sorrow in him. Must he dissemble, then, to ever have a friend?

“Will you promise me, Sherlock, that you will try?”

“I—I suppose.”

Mycroft nodded. It was a better answer than he’d hoped for. “I have something else I’d like to speak with you about, as well. What do you suppose the world—the world of grown-up people is like?"

Sherlock blinked. He did not understand the swift change of subject matter.

"I can't tell. I'm not grown-up," he said, very sincerely. "But I know they’re very… treacherous."

Mycroft was amused and asked him what examples of treachery he had seen. He replied that he had made many observations of grown-up people, and had concluded that one way or another, grown-ups were always cheating and dissembling. Losing his schoolboy manner, he began to talk like an adult, enumerating instances of deceptions he had observed: Mr. Sargent, who had cheated on his university exams; Leonard Blakely who lied about where he went every Wednesday evening; even the headmaster, whose vocal Christian piety somehow never extended to tithes or volunteerism.

Mycroft steered him into the path by the water gardens, where he sat down on a bench to listen to him. He lit his pipe, and looked up to the sky. The day was gray and windless, with little distinction between clouds and sun. He was glad he’d thought to bring his umbrella.

"That isn’t quite what I meant," he interrupted, seeing that Sherlock had finished. “You live in college with other boys.”

Sherlock blinked again. "You know I do."

"And have done for most of your life."

Sherlock forbore to answer such an obvious statement. He was curious as to the point Mycroft was coming to.

"You are surrounded by boys and taught by men. You are visited by me. This is the extent of your experience of the world."

Sherlock bristled at the implication of his naivete. "I know many people. Ladies. Women. Mother keeps the three maids—and Alice, too! And Yvette in France, but of course you know that."

Mycroft nodded slowly. "How old are you, now?"

"Thirteen and three quarters." It was never good when Mycroft began asking obvious questions.

"When I was your age, father told me something that proved useful and helped me a good deal." This was untrue: his father had never told him anything. But he needed a prelude to what he was going to say.

"Did he?" Sherlock asked warily.

"Shall I tell you what it was?"

Sherlock was silent. He was desperate to hear what his father had told Mycroft, but his pride would not allow him to answer.

"I am going to talk to you for a few moments as if I were father, Sherlock." Then, very plainly, he approached the mystery of sex. He spoke of male and female, evolved in nature in order that the earth might be populated, and of the period when the male and female receive their powers. "You are just becoming a man now, Sherlock; that is why I am telling you about this. It is not a thing that your masters can tell you, and you should not learn it from your fellows. If school boys mention it to you, just shut them up; tell them you know. Have you heard about sex before?"

"No." This was technically true: Sherlock had heard nothing whatever from his fellows about sex, not being on close speaking terms with any of them—but he was unusually observant and had seen and inferred more than an averagely intelligent boy his age would have in the natural course of things.

"Not a word?"

"No."

Still smoking his pipe, Mycroft got up, and choosing a smooth piece of earth nearby drew diagrams upon it with the tip of his umbrella. "Scientific diagrams will make this easier," he said to the boy, who watched in fascination: it bore no relation to his experiences. He was attentive, as was natural when he was the only one in the class, and he knew that the subject was serious and related to his own body. But he could not himself relate it; it fell to pieces as soon as Mycroft put it together, like an impossible sum. In vain he tried. His intelligence would not connect to his inner self. Manhood was stealing on him, as it always must, in a trance. Useless to break in upon that trance. Useless to describe it, however mechanically or sympathetically. The boy assents and is dragged back into sleep, not to be enticed there before his hour. Mycroft, whatever his science, was sympathetic. Indeed he was too sympathetic; he attributed a cultivated understanding to Sherlock, and did not realize that one might grasp every fact on an intellectual level, and still understand nothing whatever.

"All this is rather a bother," he said. “In my experience sexual impulses are something to be mastered—a distraction to be understood, and then put aside. But understanding is the first, necessary step.”

He spoke far more fluently than his level of comfort would have allowed, had he not spent the previous evening carefully selecting and rehearsing his words. Sherlock asked no questions: he only said, "I see, I see, I see," and Mycroft took him at his word. He examined him. The replies were satisfactory. They boy's memory was excellent and—so curious a fabric is the human—his intelligence was likely to surpass Mycroft’s own in maturity, a surface flicker growing to a mighty beacon. In the end he did ask one or two questions about sex, and they were specific and scientific in nature. Mycroft was much pleased.

"That's right," he said. "You need never be puzzled or bothered now, nor distracted from your studies." Of love and life he said nothing, except “when you are grown and married, you shall thank me for this information.”

"Oh no," remarked Sherlock. "I shall never marry.”

At this, Mycroft looked very grave. “Why would you say such a thing, Sherlock?”

The boy shrugged. “I shall never wish to. No more than you do, yourself, I think.”

Mycroft’s eyes widened in surprise. “Of course I shall marry! Heavens! Think of my ambitions! I have no wish to end my career locked up in a Reading cell. We are having two different conversations at the same time, and you are becoming confused.”

They sat down again on the bench. “I never supposed you to be naturally inclined towards marriage. Your impulses, I suspect, tend the same way as mine. We are alike in so many ways. People like you—people like us—must learn caution if we want to get anywhere in life. We must learn to tame our baser impulses, to keep them always subordinate to our Reason. I have learned to do this. You will, too. Marriage is a matter quite separate. It is a shield. Caring, Sherlock, is not an advantage.”

“But headmaster says—”

“Oh, I’m well aware of what headmaster says.” Mycroft swallowed back a grim smile. Suddenly he raised his umbrella in the air and assumed the old man’s habitual pose at the lecturn: “To love a noble woman, to protect and serve her—this is the Crown of Life! It all hangs together—all—and God's in his heaven, All's right with the world. Male and female! Ah, wonderful!"

Sherlock laughed. “Spot on!”

“The point is,” Mycorft resumed in his own voice, “that the ‘crown of life’ is not available to all of us.”

Sherlock was silent for a moment. “Homosexuals, you mean.” He’d heard the word in schoolyard taunts and whispers.

“Correct. The sexual impulse is not only for procreation. In some of us, its function is less generative and more troublesome. For men of ambition and men of intellect, it is an impulse we must master. I had hoped that you might be spared the added burden of such proclivities. Vainly, I see. You must be very careful. Be guarded. You must learn that not every impulse should be followed.”

Sherlock understood. He was English, after all. He suddenly felt very angry. "We must do as the world requires, and ignore our own impulses."

"Some men mask them—your Mr. Blakely, for instance, strikes me as just such a one—and some ignore them, yes. England has always been disinclined to accept human nature," Mycroft concluded. “Given the risks and the consequences, it is both wise and expedient for men like us to take a wife.” This was the essence of Mycroft’s message that day: to conform. To conform! His heart suddenly ached, and he had to quell the impulse to put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He looked down at Sherlock to see that he understood, but he was staring fixedly at the ground. Mycroft sighed and went on. “It mayn’t be as terrible as all that, brother. You may, as I hope to do, find a sympathetic woman who requires the protection of marriage just as much as you do. In such a case, your arrangement will be mutually beneficial. Think of all the brilliant work you will be able to do in your life, with that protection! Here, this day ten years hence—I invite you and your wife to dinner with my wife and me. We will make a merry party, I promise you. Will you accept?"

Sherlock shuddered. He clenched his teeth, and a great mass of sorrow that had overwhelmed him by rising to the surface began to sink. He could feel it going down into his heart until he was conscious of it no longer.

"All right." He looked up fiercely into Mycroft’s pale eyes, and suddenly for the first time, the boy despised him. "Liar," he thought. "Coward.” Then darkness rolled up again, the darkness that is primeval but not eternal, and yields to its own painful dawn.

 


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes goes up to Oxford and meets Victor Trevor.

October, 1907

One night, just before ten o'clock, Sherlock Holmes slipped into Magdalen and waited in the Great Court until the gates were shut behind him. Looking up, he noticed the night. He professed indifference to beauty as a rule, but "what a show of stars!" he thought. And how the fountain splashed when the chimes died away, and the gates and doors all over Oxford had been fastened up. Magdalen men were around him—all of enormous intellect and culture. Sherlock's Merton set liked to sneer at Magdalen, but they could not ignore its disdainful radiance, or deny the superiority it scarcely troubles to affirm. He had come to it without their knowledge on the invitation of a third-year he’d met at the Sheldonian who had been diverted by Sherlock’s acerbic analysis of the musicians and asked him ’round for drinks sometime. In truth, Sebastian Wilkes had envied Sherlock’s astonishing perspicacity, and thought to amuse himself by having the strange, pale man deduce his chums’ most shameful secrets. Sherlock was unused to society and unburdened by many—by any—friends. Since coming up he had adopted a haughty demeanor to mask his loneliness, but he was incapable of resisting such an invitation, regardless of the motives which he knew to be suspect. Reflexively remembering the promise he had made to his brother all those years ago, he drew himself up and went on.

Wilkes’s rooms were at the end of a short passage; which since it contained no obstacle was unlighted, and visitors slid along the wall until they hit the door.

Sherlock hit it sooner than he expected—a most awful whack—and exclaimed "Oh damnation" loudly, while the panels quivered.

"Come in," said a voice. Surprise awaited him—the speaker was a man of his own college, by name of Trevor. Wilkes was no where to be seen.

"Hullo, Holmes!"

"Where is Wilkes?"

"Had to dash—something about a match? Didn’t mention that he’d been expecting a caller, though."

Sherlock turned to leave.

"Are you going back into college?" asked Trevor without looking up: he was kneeling over a castle of pianola records on the floor.

"I suppose so, as he isn't here. It wasn't anything particular."

"Wait a sec, and I'll come too. I'm sorting out the Pathetic Symphony."

Sherlock examined Wilkes's room minutely, and then sat on the table and looked at Trevor. He was a small-boned man with facile manners and a freckled face, which had flushed when Sherlock blundered in. In the college he had a reputation for garrulousness and also for exclusive taste. Almost the only thing Sherlock had heard about him was that he "went out too much," and this meeting in Magdalen rather confirmed it.

"I can't find the March," he said. "Sorry."

"All right."

"I'm borrowing them to play on Sinclare’s pianola."

"Oh, he’s under me."

"Have you come into college, Holmes?"

"Yes. I'm beginning my second year."

"Oh yes, of course, I'm third."

He spoke with some arrogance, and Sherlock, never one to observe due honour to seniority, said, "You look more like a fresher than a third-year man, I must say."

"I may do, but I feel like an M.A."

Sherlock regarded him carefully. Third-years barely bothered to speak to him, usually.

"Wilkes is an amusing chap," Trevor continued.

Sherlock did not reply.

"But all the same, a little of him goes a long way."

"Yet you don't mind borrowing his things," Sherlock observed, although he heartily agreed with Trevor’ assessment.

Trevor looked up again. "Oughtn't I to?" he asked.

Sherlock shrugged and slipped off the table. "Have you found that music yet?"

"No."

"What is it you want?" he asked, advancing.

"The March out of the Pathetique—"

"That means nothing to me. You like this style of music?"

"I do."

"Violin is more my style."

"Mine too," said Trevor, meeting his eye. As a rule Sherlock shifted, but he held firm on this occasion. They eyed each other for long seconds. Trevor licked his lip, and Sherlock felt something twist deep in his gut. It surprised him profoundly.

Then Trevor said, "The other movement may be in that pile over by the window. I must look. I shan't keep you."

Flustered, Sherlock went. The stars blurred, the night had turned towards rain. But while the porter was getting the keys at the gate he heard quick footsteps behind him.

"Got your March?"

"No, I thought I'd come along with you instead."

Shocked, Sherlock walked a few steps in silence, then said, "Here, give me some of those things to carry." Stranger and stranger.

"I've got them safe."

"Give," he said roughly, and jerked the records from under Trevor's arm. No other conversation passed, but their arms jostled together as they walked, and Sherlock felt the contact fizz over his skin. He’d never felt anything quite like it.

On reaching their own college, Trevor insisted that Sherlock come along to Sinclare’s for some music: “It’s the least I can offer, for your kind help in carrying it all.” Sherlock forbore to mention that he’d not been into anyone else’s rooms since coming up. He’d immediately rejected the few invitations he’d received, and his classmates had quickly got the message: if Trevor had a reputation for enjoying society, Holmes had acquired quite the opposite.

At the invitation of their host, Trevor sat down at the pianola. Sherlock knelt beside him.

"Didn't know you were in the aesthetic push, Holmes," said Sinclare.

"I'm not at all—I want to hear what they're up to."

Sherlock listened carefully to the music. He rather liked it.

"You ought to be this end," said Sinclare, who was smoking by the fire. "You should get away from the machine as far as you can."

"I think so—play it again, would you?"

"Yes, do, Trevor. It is a jolly thing."

Trevor refused; he said, "A movement isn't like a separate piece—you can't repeat it"—an unintelligible excuse, Sherlock thought, but apparently acceptable. He played the Largo instead, which was far from jolly, and then eleven struck and Sinclare poured out some whiskey. He and Trevor were in for the same examination, and talked shop, while Sherlock listened and watched. His shock had never ceased. He saw that Trevor was not only clever, but had a tranquil and orderly brain. He knew what he wanted to read, where he was weak, and how far the officials could help him. He had neither blind faith in tutors and lectures, nor the contempt professed by fellows like Wilkes. "You can always learn something from an older man, even if he hasn't read the latest Germans," he was telling Sinclare. They argued a little about Sophocles, then in low water Trevor said it was a pose in "us undergraduates" to ignore him and advised Sinclare to re-read the Ajax with his eye on the characters rather than the author; he would learn more that way, both about Greek grammar and life.

Sherlock was surprised by all of this. He had somehow expected to find the man unintelligent. Certainly, Trevor had a forthright and inflexible manner. But he also considered counter-arguments, thought long upon them, shook out the falsities and approved the rest. He listened carefully when Sherlock occasionally offered an opinion, and even asked for elaboration upon several small points. What hope for Sherlock, so desperately solitary, so unused to interest? His heart pounded in his chest. A stab of unnameable, unbearable emotion went through him. Jumping up, he said good night, only to regret his haste as soon as he was outside the door. He settled to wait, not on the staircase itself, for this struck him as absurd, but somewhere between its foot and Trevor's own room. Going out into the court, he located the latter, even knocking at the door, though he knew the owner was absent, and looking in he studied furniture and pictures in the firelight. Then he took his stand on a sort of bridge in the courtyard.

Unfortunately it was not a real bridge: it only spanned a slight depression in the ground, which the architect had tried to utilize in his effect. To stand on it was to feel in a photographic studio, and the parapet was too low to lean upon. Still, with a pipe in his mouth, Sherlock looked fairly natural, and hoped it wouldn't rain. He was more comfortable with solitary skulking than socializing in rooms with his fellows, in any case.

The lights were out, except in Sinclare’s room. Twelve struck, then a quarter past. For a whole hour he might have been watching for Trevor. Presently there was a noise on the staircase and the neat little figure ran out with a gown round its throat and books in its hand. It was the moment for which he had waited, but he found himself strolling away. Trevor went to his rooms behind him. The opportunity was passing.

"Good night," he croaked; his voice was going out of gear, and startling them both.

"Who's that? Oh, good night, Holmes. Taking a stroll before bed?"

"I generally do. You don't want any tea, I suppose?"

"Do I? No, perhaps it's a bit late for tea." Rather tepidly he added, "Like some whiskey though?"

"Have you a drop?" leaped from Sherlock.

"Yes—come in. Here I keep: ground floor." Trevor turned on the light. The fire was nearly out. He told Sherlock to sit down and brought up a table with glasses.

"Say when?"

"Thanks—most awfully." Sherlock felt terribly awkward. He kept thinking about that strange, swooping twist in his gut. About the way Trevor had looked at him.

"Soda or plain?" he asked, yawning.

"Soda," said Sherlock. It was impossible to stop, for the man was clearly tired and had only invited him out of civility. He drank quickly and returned to his own room, where he provided himself with plenty of tobacco and went into the court again.

It was absolutely quiet now, and absolutely dark. Sherlock walked to and fro on the hallowed grass, himself noiseless, mind in disarray. He walked all night, only going up to his rooms to escape the dawn. Unbeknownst to him, his heart had lit for the first time, and one thing in him at last was real.

They began to see a little of one another. Trevor asked him to lunch, and Sherlock asked him back, but not too soon. A caution alien to his nature was at work. He had always been one to rush in to any new enthusiasm, and this caution on so large a scale was new. He became alert, and all his actions that October term might be described in the language of battle. He would not venture on to difficult ground. He spied out Trevor's weaknesses as well as his strengths. And above all he exercised and cleaned his powers.

They walked arm in arm or arm around shoulder now, and still Sherlock’s skin fizzed at their touch. When they sat it was nearly always in the same position—Trevor in a chair, and Sherlock at his feet, leaning against his chair. In the world of their friends this attracted no notice. Trevor would sometimes stroke Sherlock's hair. It made him quite breathless, which he strove to hide.

If obliged to ask himself, "What's all this?" Sherlock would have replied, "Mycroft advised me long ago of the wisdom of feigning social relations. Well! I have found a tolerable fellow at last and I am following his advice!” But he allowed himself to ask nothing, and merely went ahead with his mouth and his mind determinedly shut. Each day with its contradictions slipped into the abyss, and he carefully ignored the fact that he was actually in danger of developing an attachment of the sort Mycroft had warned him against. To him, now, nothing else mattered. If he worked well in class and impressed his tutors, it was only a by-product, to which he had devoted no care. To ascend, to stretch a hand up the mountainside until a hand catches it, was the end for which he unconsciously strove. He forgot the hysteria of his first night and his strange recovery. They were steps which he kicked behind him. He never even thought of tenderness and emotion; his considerations about Trevor remained strategic. Trevor didn't dislike him, he was sure. That was all he wanted. One thing at a time. He didn't so much as have hopes, for hope distracts, and he had a great deal to see to.

Never having had a friend before, Sherlock had an overwhelming desire to impress Trevor. He wanted to show his friend that he had something to offer, and where formerly he would have kept silent he began to talk, talk. Always observant, he made wilder and wilder deductions about their fellows, running off strings of logic astonishing in their virtuosity. Very often Trevor made no reply and Sherlock would be terrified lest he was losing him and redouble his efforts. He had heard it said, "Trevor's all right as long as you amuse him, then he drops you," and feared lest by exhibiting what he thought of as his true, abhorrent nature he was bringing on what he tried to avoid. But he could not stop. The craving for notice grew overwhelming, so he talked, talked.

One day, Sherlock’s diatribe about the political and religious hypocrisy of the academic world, replete with examples deduced from their own dons, brought him perilously close to exposing himself. In anatomizing the secret (“but entirely obvious”) love affair between Seb Wilkes and his day maid, he realized that much of the evidence he cited could apply equally to himself in his intercourse with Trevor. Breathless, he flew on a knife’s edge of fear and exhilaration.

Trevor became thoughtful. Instead of laughing and adding a clever retort, as was his usual way, he lapsed into silence, and merely patted Sherlock’s arm as they went in to dinner.

During the meal they looked at each other. They sat at different tables, but Sherlock had contrived to move his seat so that he could glance at his friend. Trevor looked severe this evening and was not speaking to his neighbours. Sherlock was alarmed. What had he done? Had Trevor guessed what he was? Had he misjudged? He sighed. At the very least, he supposed, Trevor wasn't bored with him now.

Sherlock wasn’t able to get Trevor alone until several painful hours later. “What’s troubling you?” he asked, as soon as he could. “You’ve been looking like thunder all evening.”

"You wanted to get it and you're going to," said Trevor, sporting the door. Sherlock went cold and then crimson. But Trevor's voice, when he next heard it, was ranting previously unsuspected opinions. "You can't expect me to bottle myself up indefinitely. I must let out sometimes."

“My dear fellow—what..?”

"They are so rotten, Holmes! Everyone else up here pretends to believe in God, and the Church, and England, and they pretend to behave respectably—while behind closed doors, they’re utter reprobates! The things you tell me! Christ, man. How can they lie about themselves like that? To pretend such virtue and wallow in such vice; it makes me ill to think of it." Was this the whole truth? Was there not something else behind his new manner and furious iconoclasm? Sherlock thought there was. Outwardly in retreat, he thought that the conversation was well risked; for maybe Trevor had exposed his heart.

Towards the end of term they touched upon a yet more delicate subject. They attended the Dean's translation class, and when one of the men was forging quietly ahead Mr Cornwallis observed in a flat toneless voice: "Omit: a reference to the unspeakable vice of the Greeks." Sherlock observed afterwards that he ought to lose his fellowship for such intellectual cowardice.

Trevor laughed bitterly. "Or is it perhaps hypocrisy? You’ve jaded me, Holmes."

Sherlock snorted. “I regard it as a point of pure scholarship. The Greeks, or most of them, were that way inclined, and to omit it is to omit the mainstay of Athenian society. You've read the Symposium?”

Trevor had not.

"It's all in there—not meat for babes, of course, but you ought to read it. Read it this vac."

No more was said at the time, but Sherlock was free of a subject that — since that awkward conversation with Mycroft many years ago — he had never mentioned to any living soul. He hadn't known it could be mentioned, and when Cornwallis did so in the middle of class, a small breath of liberty touched him.

* * * * *

Trevor was not well over vac, and came up a few days late. When his face, paler than usual, peered round the door, Sherlock had a spasm of despair, and tried to recollect where they stood last term, and to gather up the threads of the campaign. He felt himself slack, and afraid of action. The terrified part of himself rose to the surface, and urged him to solitude. “Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock,” he heard Mycroft’s voice say. And yet—

"Hullo, old man," he said awkwardly.

Trevor slipped in without speaking.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing"; and Sherlock knew that he had lost touch. Last term he would have understood this silent entrance.

Sherlock sat upon the floor beyond Trevor’s reach. It was late afternoon. The sounds of the May term, the scents of the Oxford year in flower, floated in through the window and said to Sherlock, "You are unworthy of us." He knew that he was three parts dead, an alien, a yokel in Athens. He had no business here, nor with such a friend. Nor with a friend at all.

"I say, Trevor—"

Trevor came nearer. Sherlock stretched out a tentative hand and felt a grasp in return. He forgot what he was going to say. Trevor’s hand was warm in his. Very gently he stroked the hand and ran his fingers down in a caress.

"I say, Trevor, have you been all right?"

"Have you?"

"No."

"You wrote you were."

“I wasn’t.”

With an unhappy sigh, Trevor pulled Sherlock’s head against his knee and began to stroke his hair, as though it was a talisman for clear thinking—stroked it steadily from crown to temple to throat. Then, removing both hands, he dropped them on either side of him and sat down.

"Trevor—Victor." It seemed as certain that he hadn't as that he had a friend. "Is there some trouble?"

"Have you been seeing that girl?"

Sherlock was shocked into speechlessness. "Wha—? Who?”

“Miss Hooper. You wrote you liked her."

"I… I do. I like her. I didn't—don't. I’m not—"

He felt bewildered. What could he say? What should he say? To speak risked terrible consequences. But silence was equally untenable. Deeper sighs broke from him. They rattled in his throat, the sound of unspeakable words. His head fell back, and he forgot the pressure of Trevor against his knee, forgot that Trevor was watching his turbid agony. He stared at the ceiling with wrinkled mouth and eyes, understanding nothing except that man has been created to feel pain and loneliness without help from heaven.

Then Trevor took a great, shuddering breath and stretched up to him, stroked his hair with a shaking hand. They clasped one another; embraced. They were lying breast against breast soon, head was on shoulder. The sensation of Trevor’s warm body against his own was a burning, shameful, joyful thing. They were so close, so close Sherlock could feel his very breath. He closed his eyes. Moved closer. Just as their lips met, someone called "Trevor!" from the court. Both started violently. He answered: he always answered when people called. Immediately, Trevor sprang to the mantelpiece where he leant his head on his arm. Absurd, hateful people came thundering up the stairs. They wanted tea. Sherlock pointed to it, furious, and mutely watched his friend's hurried departure.

It had been an ordinary talk, he told himself, entirely ordinary. They’d been caught out just in time. He must cultivate a breeziness against their next meeting, lest he frighten Trevor away; lest he expose himself. He must not allow himself to feel too strongly. He must not begin to care.

But the next encounter took place too soon for Sherlock to have properly jettisoned his emotions. With half a dozen others he was starting for the chamber concert after hall when Trevor came up beside him.

"I read the Symposium in the vac," he said in a low, urgent voice.

Sherlock nodded uneasily. "I see. And what did you—? Then you understand—"

"What do you mean?"

It was no use. In his loneliness, given the possibility—the slightest chance—of being truly seen by another human being, Sherlock was unable to dissemble. People were all around them, but with racing heart and eyes that had gone intensely blue he whispered, "You understand what I am. The way I want you."

Trevor’s eyes softened for the merest instant and then he flushed and pulled away, looking around them fearfully. "H-Holmes,” he whispered, “You cannot say such things to me. You—you're an Englishman. I'm another. You know the risks. I'm not offended, but really, we must never mention it again. You. You must never. My—my father made me promise, and I really can’t… A rotten notion really—"

To Sherlock’s horror, tears stood in his friend’s eyes. He reached out, but Trevor was gone, gone without another word, flying across the court, the bang of his door heard through the sounds of spring.

* * * * *

A nature such as Sherlock Holmes’s can appear insensitive. It has been trained to believe that emotion is unnatural, and to resist the invader. Once gripped, it feels acutely, and its sensations in love are particularly profound. Given time, it can know and impart ecstasy; given time, it can sink to the heart of Hell. Thus it was that Sherlock’s agony began as regret; sleepless nights and lonely days must intensify it into a frenzy that consumed him. It worked inwards, till it touched the root whence body and soul both spring, the "I" that he had been taught to obscure, and, realized at last, doubled its power and grew superhuman. For it might have been joy. New worlds broke loose in him at this, and he saw from the vastness of the ruin what pleasure he had lost, what communion. They did not speak again for two days. Trevor would have made it longer, but most of their friends were now in common, and they were bound to meet. Realizing this, he wrote Sherlock an icy note suggesting that it would be a public convenience if they behaved as if nothing had happened. He added, "I shall be obliged if you will not mention your criminal morbidity to anyone else, lest it impugn me by association. I am sure you will do this from the sensible way in which you conduct yourself, generally."

Sherlock did not reply, but first put the note with the letters he had received during the vac and afterwards burnt them all. He supposed the climax of agony had come. But he was fresh to real suffering as to reality of any kind. They had yet to meet. On the second afternoon they found themselves working in the same laboratory and the pain grew excruciating. He could scarcely stand or see, let alone concentrate on his work. Then they were made to be bench-mates; once they jostled, Trevor winced, but managed to laugh in the old fashion. Moreover, it proved convenient that he should come back to college in Sherlock’s sidecar. He got in without demur. Sherlock, who had not slept or eaten for days, went light-headed, turned the machine into a by-lane, and travelled top speed. There was a wagon in front, full of women. He drove straight at them, but when they screamed stuck on his brakes, and just avoided disaster. Trevor made no comment. As he indicated in his note, he only spoke when others were present. All other intercourse was to end. That evening Sherlock went to bed, exhausted. But as he laid his head on the pillows a flood of tears oozed from it. He was horrified. Weeping!

Someone might hear him. He wept stifled in the sheets, but a terrible energy overtook him. He sprang up kicking, then struck his head against the wall and smashed the crockery. It was intolerable. Someone did come up the stairs. He grew quiet at once and did not recommence when the footsteps died away. Lighting a candle, he looked with surprise at his torn pyjama and damaged room. He continued to cry, for he could not stop, but the suicidal point had been passed, and he lay down and miraculously slept. Madness is not for everyone, but Sherlock’s first storm proved a shocking cataclysm. The storm had been working up not for three days as he supposed, but for six years. It took six full days for him to master himself even moderately again.

* * * * *

As the term went on he decided to speak to Trevor. He valued words highly, having so lately discovered their power. Why should he suffer and cause his friend suffering, when words might put all right? He heard himself saying, "I don’t know what I was thinking, I was out of my mind," and Trevor replying, "Is that so? Then I forgive you," and to the ardour of youth such a conversation seemed possible, though somehow he did not conceive it as leading to joy. He made several attempts, but partly through his own reticence, partly through Trevor's, they failed. If he went round, the door was sported, or else there were people inside; should he enter, Trevor left when the other guests did. He invited him to meals—he could never come; he offered to lift him again to their laboratory, but an excuse was made. Even if they met in the court, Trevor would affect to have forgotten something and run past him or away. He was surprised their friends did not notice the change, but few undergraduates are observant—they have too much to discover within themselves and it was a don who remarked that Trevor had stopped honeymooning with that strange Holmes person.

He found his opportunity after a debating society to which both belonged. Trevor—pleading his examination—had sent in his resignation, but had begged that the society might meet in his rooms first, as he wished to take his share of hospitality. This was like him; he hated to be under an obligation to anyone. Sherlock went and sat through a tedious evening. When everyone, including the host, surged out into the fresh air, he remained, thinking of the first night he had visited that room, and wondering whether the past cannot return. Trevor entered, and did not at once see who it was. Ignoring him utterly, he poured himself a large drink and bolted it down.

"You're beastly hard," blurted Sherlock, "you don't know what it is to have a mind in a mess, and it makes you very hard."

Trevor shook his head as one who refuses to listen. “You imagine I don’t know—” He was trembling, and looked so ill that Sherlock had a wild desire to catch hold of him.

"You might give me a chance instead of avoiding me. I only want to discuss."

"We've discussed the whole evening." He poured another drink.

"I mean the Symposium, like the ancient Greeks."

"Please don't reopen this. It's over. It's over." He went into the other room, still speaking from behind the half-closed door. "Forgive this discourtesy, but I simply can't—my nerves are all nohow after three weeks of this."

"So are mine," said Sherlock quietly.

"Oh, poor chap!" His voice was bitter and unlike himself. “Have you been unhappy? Have you been upset? You don’t understand what my father would do to me, Sherlock. I cannot—”

Sherlock followed him. “What are you doing in there? What’s—are you drugging?”

Trevor looked up from where he sat, a small vial of cocaine in his shaking hands. “It’s more than my life’s worth, Holmes. Please. I can’t.”

"Victor, I'm in Hell. Please. I don’t understand."

"Just leave it, will you? You've never done anything to be ashamed of, yet. Keep it that way, my dear friend. Please. Think of me. Think of our futures."

Sherlock gave a cry of pain. It was so unmistakable that Trevor, who was about to close the door between them, said, "I’ll give you some of this, if you like. It helps. It … stops one from feeling quite so much.”

"Yes, anything. Anything. There. Listen, I—I mistook your ordinary friendliness, Vic. When you were so good to me, above all the night I came up to Magdalen—I thought it was something else. I am more sorry than I can ever say. I had no right to move out of my books and my laboratory, which was what I did when I met you. You won't want my apology any more than anything else I could give, but I do make it most sincerely. It is a lasting grief to have insulted you." His voice was feeble but clear, and his face like a sword.

"That's all, I think. Here, take this. Get married quickly and forget."

Sherlock laughed. “I believe I have heard that advice before.” He was suddenly feeling very well. Very well indeed. He supposed it was the cocaine. "Listen, Vic. I want to say this. I need to tell you. I have always been like the Greeks. I have always known it."

"Expand the statement."

Words deserted him immediately; his mind felt expansive and he collapsed at Trevor’s feet, wishing to feel his hands tangled up in his hair.

Trevor sighed. "Holmes, don't be grotesque."

"I'm not grotesque—"

Victor looked pained. "No. I shouldn't have said that. But do leave me now. I can’t bear to have you here. I can’t—I can’t trust myself to stay right."

Sherlock flinched. "Oh, go to Hell." He staggered to his feet and rushed out into the court. Once more he heard the bang of the outer door. Furious, he stood on the bridge in a night that resembled the first, drizzly with faint stars. He made no allowance for three weeks of torture unlike his own or for the poison which, secreted by one man, acts differently on another. He was enraged not to find his friend as he had left him. Twelve o'clock struck, one, two. He took the last of the cocaine Trevor had given him. He was planning what to say when there is nothing to say and the resources of speech are ended.

Then savage, reckless, drenched with the rain, he saw in the first glimmer of dawn the window of Trevor's room, and his heart leapt alive and shook him to pieces. It cried, "You love and are loved." He looked round the court. It cried, "You are strong, he weak and alone." It won over his will. Terrified at what he must do, he caught hold of the mullion and sprang.

"Sherlock—"

As he alighted his name had been called out of dreams. The violence went out of his heart, and a purity that he had never imagined dwelt there instead. His friend had called him. He stood for a moment entranced, then the new emotion found him words, and laying his hand very gently upon the pillows he answered, "Victor!"

* * * * *

"I've missed two lectures already," remarked Sherlock late the next morning. He and Trever were lazily smoking in bed. Sherlock could not stop touching his friend’s skin.

"Cut them all—he'll only gate you."

"Will you come out in the side-car?"

"Yes, but we must go a long way," said Trevor, lighting another cigarette. "We must go where no one can find us. Let's get right outside it ever so far and bathe. I can work as we go along—Oh damnation!"— for there were steps on the stairs. Sinclare knocked and called in, asking for a lift, but Sherlock cursed so volubly that he departed with a few choice words of his own.

"Sherlock! What did you do that for, you fool?"

"Cleared him out quickest, didn’t it? I assume we don’t want to be caught out.” Trevor looked chagrined. “Meet me at the garage in twenty minutes. I must dress. Bring some of that cocaine, too, would you?” Sherlock was feeling reckless, almost dizzy. He’d never experienced anything quite like it. In the grip of the drug, he was powerful and unconcerned with consequences. “Where do you find it, anyway?"

“Seb Wilkes always has plenty. Here; I’ve more than enough.”

They met as arranged, and packed on a picnic lunch and a bottle of wine. But as they threaded Jesus Lane they were hailed by the Dean.

"Holmes, haven't you a lecture?"

"I overslept," called Sherlock contemptuously.

"Holmes! Holmes! Stop when I speak to you."

Sherlock went on. His feeling of detachment was supreme. "No good arguing," he observed.

"Not the least." Trevor giggled behind him.

They swirled across the bridge and into the road. Sherlock said, "Now we'll go to Hell." The machine was powerful, he reckless naturally. It leapt forward into the fens and the receding dome of die sky. They became a giddy cloud of dust, a stench, and a roar to the world, but the air they breathed was pure, and all the noise they heard was the long drawn cheer of the wind. They cared for no one, they were outside humanity, and death, had it come, would only have continued their pursuit of a retreating horizon. A tower, a town—it had been Godstow—were behind them, in front the same sky, paling at last as though heralding the sea. "Right turn," again, then "left," "right," until all sense of direction was gone. There was a rip, a grate. Sherlock took no notice. A noise arose as of a thousand pebbles being shaken together between his legs. No accident occurred, but the machine came to a standstill among the dark black fields. The song of the lark was heard, the trail of dust began to settle behind them. They were alone.

"Let's sit," said Victor. Sherlock was quite breathless.

They sat on a grassy embankment. Above them the waters of a dyke moved imperceptibly, and reflected interminable willow trees. Man, who had created the whole landscape, was nowhere to be seen. They ate what little food they’d brought, and drank a bottle of blanc-de-blanc between them, before drugging again and lying back in the grass, contented and euphoric. Trevor was asleep in ten minutes, but Sherlock couldn’t fathom giving up this feeling of utter contentment for unconsciousness, and lay up by the water, smoking. A farmer's cart appeared, and it did occur to him to ask which county they were in. But he said nothing, nor did the farmer appear to notice him. When Trevor awoke it was past three. "We shall want some tea soon," was his contribution.

"All right. Can you mend the bloody bike?"

"Oh yes, didn't something jam?" He yawned and walked down to the machine. "No, I can't, Sherlock, can you?"

"Rather not."

They laid their cheeks together and began laughing. The smash struck them as extraordinarily funny. Father’s present too! He had given it to Sherlock against his coming of age. Trevor said, "How if we left it and walked?"

"Yes, who'd do it any harm? Leave the coats and things inside it. What can it matter?"

"What about my books?"

"Leave 'em too."

"I shan't want them after hall?"

"Oh, I don't know. Tea's more important than hall. It stands to reason—well what are you giggling at?—that if we follow a dyke long enough we must come to a pub."

"Why, they use it to water their beer!"

Sherlock smote him on the ribs, and for ten minutes they played up amongst the trees, too giddy for speech. Pensive again, they stood close together, although Trevor refused to allow Sherlock to kiss him in the open. Then they hid the bicycle behind dog roses, and started. Trevor took his notebook away with him, but it did not survive in any useful form, for the dyke they were following branched.

"We must wade this," he said. "We can't go round or we shall never get anywhere. Sherlock, look—we must keep in a bee line south."

"All right."

It did not matter which of them suggested what that day; the other always agreed. Trevor took off his shoes and socks and rolled his trousers up. Then he stepped upon the brown surface of the dyke and vanished. He reappeared swimming.

"All that deep!" he spluttered, climbing out. "Sherlock, no idea! Had you?"

Sherlock, laughing, cried, "I say, I must bathe properly." He stripped off and did so, while Victor carried his clothes. The light grew radiant. Presently they came to a farm. The farmer's wife was inhospitable and ungracious, but they barely noticed anything aside from each other. She did in the end give them tea and allow Trevor to dry near her kitchen fire. She "left payment to them," and, when they overpaid her, grumbled. Nothing checked their spirits. They transmuted everything to pleasure. Sherlock felt most unlike his usual self; it was a vast relief.

"Goodbye, we're greatly obliged," said Trevor. "And if any of your men come across the bike: I wish we could describe where we left it better. Anyhow I'll give you my friend's card. Tie it on the bike if they will be so kind, and bring it down to the nearest station. Something of the sort, I don't know. The station master will wire to us."

The station was five miles on. When they reached it the sun was low, and they were not back in Oxford till after hall. All this last part of the day was perfect. The train, for some unknown reason, was full, and they sat close together, talking quietly under the hubbub, and smiling. When they parted it was in the ordinary way: neither had an impulse to say anything special. The whole day had been ordinary. Yet it had never come before to either of them, nor was it to be repeated.

* * * * *

The Dean sent Sherlock down. Mr Cornwallis was not a severe official, and the boy was clearly brilliant when he chose to apply himself, but he could not overlook so gross a breach of discipline. "And why did you not stop when I called you, Holmes?" Sherlock made no answer, did not even look sorry. He had a smouldering eye, and Mr Cornwallis, though much annoyed, realized that he was confronted with a man. In a dead, bloodless way, he even guessed what had happened.

"Yesterday you cut chapel, four lectures, including my own translation class, and hall. You have done this sort of thing before. It's unnecessary to add impertinence, don't you think? Well? No reply? You will go down and inform your father of the reason. I shall inform him too. Until you write me a letter of apology, I shall not recommend your readmission to the college in October. Catch the twelve o'clock."

"All right."

Mr Cornwallis motioned him out.

No punishment was inflicted on Trevor. He had been let off all lectures in view of his examination, and even if he had been remiss the Dean would not have worried him; the best scholar of his year, he had won special treatment. A good thing he would no longer be distracted by Holmes. Mr Cornwallis always suspected such friendships. It was not natural that men of different characters and tastes should be intimate, and although undergraduates, unlike schoolboys, are generally adults, the dons exercised a certain amount of watchfulness. They felt it right to spoil a love affair when they could.

Trevor helped Sherlock pack, and saw him off. He said little, lest he depressed his friend, who was still in the heroics, but he was greatly shaken. He had plunged into the ill-advised affair with Holmes, such as it had been, in a torment of desperation and terror. It was his last term, for his father would certainly not let him stay up a fourth year, which meant that he and Sherlock would never meet in Oxford again. He could not conceive of their meeting anywhere else. He wished that Sherlock had not taken up a such a public line with the Dean, but it was too late now. Perhaps it had been for the best. It could only ever end in disaster, after all, and this was a less disastrous ending than it might have been. Imagine if his father had somehow found them out? He shuddered. And then, too, he had ambitions for his career, and he could see already that Holmes would only hinder them. Returning to his room, he wrote passionate sheets of despair and regret, and sent them off—not without a pang. Sherlock received the letter the next morning. It completed what his brother had begun, and he had his first explosion of rage against the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week: a difficult parting.  
> See my tumblr for Thursday teasers and howls of writerly despair (this project gives me feels ok).


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and Victor continue a complicated friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for canon-typical mention of suicidality.

May, 1908

If Sherlock had known that he and Victor would only be properly together for a single night and day, he thought that he would not have chosen to spend it careering about like a fool, but in rather more intimate pursuits. He did not know that he had in fact spent it perfectly—he was too young to detect the triviality of contact for contact's sake. He would have surfeited passion; excess was his nature. When he was much older, he realized how well Fate had served him. The one embrace in the darkness, the one long day in the light and the wind, were twin columns, each useless without the other. And all the agony of separation that he went through now, instead of destroying, was to fulfill. He tried to answer Victor’s horrible letter. Already he feared to ring false. In the evening he received another, composed of the words "Sherlock! I love you too well to compromise you any further. We must stop now, stop and forget. The consequences don’t bear thinking about. But please—please write back. I can’t bear this."

Some days later, he was able to pen a response: "Consider it forgotten." Letters distort even more quickly than silence. A terror seized Victor that something was going wrong with Sherlock. Knowing his mercurial temperament, he feared that he might do something rash,and just before his exam he got leave to run down to town. Sherlock lunched with him. It was horrible. Both were tired, and they had chosen a restaurant where they could not hear themselves speak. "I haven't enjoyed it," said Victor when he wished goodbye. Sherlock felt relieved. He had pretended to himself that he had enjoyed it, and thus increased his misery. They agreed that they would confine themselves to facts in their letters, and only write when anything was urgent. The emotional strain relaxed, and Sherlock, nearer to brain fever than he supposed, slept for a full day and night.

But daily life remained a poor business. Sherlock had returned to his family’s estate, a quiet, lonely manor in Somerset that felt less like a home than an exile. His parents barely spoke to him except to express their extreme disappointment in his disgraceful behaviour, about which they seemed unsurprised. Mycroft was by now firmly ensconced in London, and rarely left his Whitehall chambers. He’d not been to Somerset in several years. Sherlock’s days passed in a haze of misery, with books and moody walks his only activities.

Then, one unusually sweltering day in June, Mycroft arrived from London. Sherlock was given no warning of his coming, and so was unable to avoid the audience that Mycroft immediately requested.

"Well, Sherlock,” he said with bland geniality as Sherlock sat himself down in Mycroft’s snug little study. “How goes the career? Not quite as you expected, eh?"

Sherlock was silent.

"Not quite as mother and father expected, which is more to the point."

"Not quite as anyone expected," said Sherlock, looking at his hands. “Except you, as I recall.”

Mycroft sighed. “I did try to warn you,” he began. He was very angry with his brother’s idiocy and mule-headedness, but hid his emotion behind a facade of resignation. “Well, perhaps it's all for the best,” he said. “What do you want with a university degree? It won’t teach you anything you don’t already know—or can’t teach yourself in a week or two of applied effort, God knows. Waste of time for a mind like yours. Get into harness at once, hmm? Quite right to insult the Dean, as well.” (This last was sarcasm.) “And I assume you won’t apologize?”

Sherlock said nothing. His jaw tightened, and Mycroft, despite himself, clenched his fist in anger. “London’s more your place, at any rate. Our parents—" He paused and lit a cigar to give his hands something to do. "Our parents don’t understand. For my own part I think these things right themselves, with time. You’ll come down to London and live with me. We’ll find something to keep you occupied. I’ll be entirely more comfortable having you about where I can see you every day. Mother and father are in complete agreement."

"Complete agre—? Did no one think to ask me about my wishes?”

"Once you demonstrate any kind of competence in the running of your life, you can expect to have a say—not before. You can’t imagine I came up for a pleasant chat, surely? I’m far to busy a man for that. I’m here to fetch you back with me."

Sherlock understood then that it was no good. "I see,” he said, standing. He was shaking with anger. In truth, he quite liked the idea of living in London—but to be shuttled around by his family like a child! To live under his brother’s watchful eye! He shuddered.

"You have two days to prepare. And Sherlock, please remember: you’ve brought this on yourself. We depart on Saturday."

"Well. You've spoken straight—perhaps some day I shall do the same. I know I'd like to."

Outside at last, Sherlock pressed his face into the wall. He was ashamed in a way. He knew he had behaved badly—and worse, stupidly. Mycroft had touched to the raw. But somehow he could not retract, could not alter. Once out of the rut, he seemed out of it for ever. He considered his offense. If a woman had been in that side-car, if then he had refused to stop at the Dean's bidding, would he have been sent down? Surely not. He could not conceive of issuing an apology, and could not believe that Mycroft—Mycroft of all people!—would expect him to do so. It was utterly untenable.

A month in London with Mycroft did nothing to raise his spirits. He was as alone there as he had been in Somerset, and what was worse, he was entirely at loose ends, having—for the first time in his life—no studies to pursue nor occupation of any sort. For the first weeks, he kept to his bedroom and read through Mycroft’s entire library, railing at his tastes and intellectual deficiencies each evening when Mycroft returned home. Mycorft bore this with good grace, hoping his brother would soon settle on a more productive pursuit. In this, however, he was disappointed. Sherlock stagnated; Sherlock sank. Mycroft grew more worried.

One day in late July, a letter arrived from Victor Trevor. Mycroft handed it to Sherlock with a raised eyebrow and an almost fatherly pang. Sherlock opened it much later that night, privately, and with a sickly feeling of trepidation mixed with joy. He wasn’t sure he could bear another gentle renunciation of what he knew to be real and true between himself and Victor. There was nothing at all personal about the letter, however, just a brief, dry invitation to a weekend party at his family’s home in the country. “Don’t write—just come,” Victor had scrawled across the bottom of the note.

Against his better judgment, Sherlock resolved to go. His restlessness of spirit was growing intolerable; he sometimes felt quite mad with it. He had instances of shaking, times when he could not catch his breath; he couldn’t sleep or eat—and Mycroft had begun to notice. The idea of taking himself off for a time held great appeal, and so he overruled his brother’s objections and began to make his preparations.

The Trevors lived in a remote part of England on the Wilts and Somerset border. Though not an old family they had held land for four generations, and its influence had passed into them. Victor's great-great-uncle had been Lord Chief Justice in the reign of George IV, and the nest he had feathered was Penge. The feathers were inclined to blow about now. A hundred years had nibbled into the fortune, which no wealthy bride had replenished, and both house and estate were marked, not indeed with decay, but with the immobility that precedes it. The house lay among woods. A park, still ridged with the lines of vanished hedges, stretched around, giving light and air and pasture to horses and Alderney cows. Beyond it the trees began, most planted by old Sir Edwin, who had annexed the common lands. There were two entrances to the park, one up by the village, the other on the clayey road that went to the station. There had been no station in the old days, and the approach from it, which was undignified and led by the back premises, typified an afterthought of England's.

Sherlock arrived in the evening. He had travelled straight from the London flat he shared with Mycroft, and the change to Penge was immense. Victor had met him at the station and was with him in the brougham, but then so was a Mrs Sheepshanks, who had arrived by his train. Mrs Sheepshanks had a maid, following behind with her luggage and his in a cab, and he wondered whether he ought to have brought a servant too. The lodge gate was held by a little girl. Mrs Sheepshanks wished everyone curtsied. Victor trod on his foot when she said this, but he wasn't sure whether accidentally. He was sure of nothing. When they approached he mistook the back for the front, and prepared to open the door. Mrs Sheepshanks said, "Oh, but that's complimentary."

Besides, there was a butler to open the door.

Tea, very bitter, was awaiting them, and Mrs Trevor looked one way while she poured out the other. People stood about, all looking distinguished or there for some distinguished reason. They were doing things or causing others to do them, all perfectly at their ease. Miss Trevor booked him to canvass tomorrow for Tariff Reform. He agreed without thinking as a matter of course; but the cry with which she greeted his alliance did not please him. "Mother, Mr Holmes is sound." Major Western, a cousin also stopping in the house, would ask him about Oxford. Did Army men mind one being sent down? In all, it was worse than the restaurant, for there Victor had been out of his element too.

"Pippa, does Mr Holmes know his room?"

“The Blue Room, mama."

"The one with no fireplace," called Victor. "Show him up." He was seeing off some callers, and had barely glanced at Sherlock since they’d arrived. Sherlock’s heart sank.

Miss Trevor passed Sherlock on to the butler. They went up a side staircase.

Sherlock saw the main flight to the right, and wondered whether he was being slighted. His room was small, furnished cheaply. It had no outlook. As he knelt down to unpack, a feeling of bewilderment came over him, and he determined to depart as early as he could without causing offense. But he had scarcely reached this conclusion when Victor rushed in with the sunlight behind him. "Sherlock, I shall kiss you," he said, and did so.

Sherlock returned his embrace even as his bewilderment increased. “Victor,” he said, breaking away, “What—?

But Victor only kissed him again and again, until they broke off, breathless, leaning against each other and smiling.

"Where—what's through there?" Sherlock asked finally.

"Our study—" He was laughing, his expression wild and radiant.

"Oh, so that's why—"

"Sherlock! Sherlock! You've actually come.” Victor’s arms were around him once more. “You're here! This place'll never seem the same again, I shall love it at last."

"It's jolly for me coming," said Sherlock chokily: the sudden rush of relief made his head swim. “But I scarcely understand. Have you changed your mind? I thought—your father—?”

“My father won’t even notice; that’s why it had to be this weekend. Do you see? There’s so much on, such a bustle, another guest won’t rouse the slightest suspicion. Go on unpacking. I arranged it on purpose. We're up this staircase by ourselves. It's as like college as I could manage."

"It's better," Sherlock said warmly, though noting that Victor had ignored his first question entirely.

"I really feel it will be."

There was a knock on the passage door. Sherlock started; Victor sprang away, but called "Come in!" with a carefully indifferent voice. A housemaid entered with hot water.

"Except for meals we need never be in the other part of the house," he continued. "Either here or out of doors. Jolly, eh? I've a piano." He drew him into the study. "Look at the view. You may shoot rabbits out of this window. By the way, if my mother or Pippa tells you at dinner that they want you to do this or that tomorrow, you needn't worry. Say 'yes' to them if you like. You're actually going to ride with me, and they know it. It's only their ritual. On Sunday, when you haven't been to church they'll pretend afterwards you were there."

"But I've no proper riding breeches."

"I can't associate with you in that case," said Victor and bounded off giddily.

When Sherlock returned to the drawing-room he felt more comfortable than before. He walked up to Mrs Sheepshanks, opened his mouth before she could open hers, and was even moderately polite. He took his place in the absurd octet that was forming to go in—himself and Mrs Sheepshanks, Major Western and another woman, another man and Pippa, Victor and his mother and father. Mr. Trevor ignored Sherlock entirely, while the lady hazily apologized for the smallness of the party, and then joined her husband in a pleasant sort of indifference.

Seated between Victor on his right and Pippa on his left, Sherlock was cheerily ignored by the larger party of diners and left free to converse with his friend. He could feel Victor’s long leg pressed warmly against his own.

"I'll tell you my latest now," said Victor into his ear. "As soon as I got home I had a row with father and told him I should stop up a fourth year."

Sherlock gave a start.

"What's wrong?"

"You know I've been sent down."

"But you're coming back in October!"

"I'm not. The dean said I must apologize, and I wouldn't—I won’t. I thought you wouldn't be up, so I didn't care."

"And I settled to stop because I thought you would be up. Comedy of Errors."

Sherlock stared gloomily before him, but Victor tapped him on the shoulder. "Comedy of Errors, not Tragedy,” he said playfully. “You can apologize now."

“I can’t. I won’t apologize for—I’m not sorry, Victor. Not for any of it."

“No. No, I don’t suppose you are.”

“Well—are you?” Sherlock’s vertiginous feeling of bewilderment returned. Victor’s behaviour was inconsistent; he could make neither heads nor tails of it.

"Sorry? No. No, I’ve given off being sorry about anything at all, really, and it serves these people right. As long as they talk of the unspeakable vice of the Greeks they can't expect fair play. It served my father right when I slipped up to kiss you before dinner. He’d have me locked up he knew. And mother? She speaks endlessly of kindness and nobility, but she’d have no mercy if she knew. She wouldn't attempt, wouldn't want to attempt to understand that I feel to you as Pippa to her fiance, only far more nobly, far more deeply, body and soul, no starved medievalism of course, only a—a particular harmony of body and soul that I don't think women have even guessed. But you know."

"I… I do." I fact, Sherlock hadn’t known. Based upon all available evidence, he’d rather thought Victor had thrown him over.

There was a long interval: they picked at their food and discussed the motor bicycle, which had never been heard of again, until the coffee had been served and the ladies retired. As early as they could, they made their excuses and retired to Victor’s study where they could resume their conversation more freely.

"Tell me,” Victor asked, settling into Sherlock’s side, “what made you wake me that night after the Debating Society. Describe."

"I kept on thinking of something to say, and couldn't; at last I couldn't even think, so I just came."

"Sort of thing you would do."

"Are you ragging?" asked Sherlock shyly.

Victor batted at him, but Sherlock grabbed and held his hand, and looked at him seriously. "Tell me now. Why did you make us both so unhappy?"

"I don't know. I can't explain anything. Why did you saddle me with that Plato? I was all in a muddle. A lot of things hadn't joined up in me that since have."

"But hadn't we understood each other for months? Since that first night at Seb Wilkes’, in fact?"

"Don't ask me."

Sherlock sighed. How could Victor understand so little of himself—of his own motivations and desires? "It's a queer business," he said finally.

"It's that."

They laughed softly together, dreamily. Sherlock touched Victor’s face; Victor kissed his fingers.

Victor said, "I should have gone through life half awake if you'd had the decency to leave me alone. Awake intellectually, yes, and emotionally in a way; but here—" He pointed with his pipe stem to his heart; and both smiled. "Perhaps we woke up one another. I’d like to think that any way."

Sherlock, almost whispering, asked, "When did you first care about me?"

"Don't ask me," said Victor again.

Sherlock was quiet, and pressed his face into Victor’s sleeve.

"Oh, now. Like really to know?" asked Victor, sounding surprised.

"…yes."

"Well, it was your beauty."

Sherlock blinked. "My what?"

"Your beauty, idiot. I used to admire that man over the bookcase most. Until I met you."

"I’d give the edge to the picture, I must say," said Sherlock, having glanced at the Michelangelo. "Victor, you're very foolish. But since you've brought it up I think you're beautiful, the only beautiful person I've ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I… I adore you."

Victor went crimson. "Sit up straight and let's change the subject," he said, all the folly out of him.

Again, Sherlock felt dizzy with the sudden change of mood. "I’m sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"No—no. I hadn't guessed, not so much at least. You're all right, Sherlock." He did not change the subject but developed it into abstract and theoretical terms. "Look at that picture, for instance. I love it because, like the painter himself, I love the subject. I don't judge it with eyes of the normal man. There seem two roads for arriving at Beauty—one is in common, and all the world has reached Michelangelo by it, but the other is private to me and a few more. We come to him by both roads. On the other hand Greuze—his subject matter repels me. I can only get to him down one road. The rest of the world finds two."

Sherlock did not interrupt. It sounded rather like nonsense to him, but Victor would continue on.

"These private roads are perhaps a mistake," he was saying. "But as long as the human figure is painted they will be taken. Landscape is the only safe subject—or perhaps something geometric, rhythmical, inhuman absolutely. I wonder whether that is what the Mohammedans were up to and old Moses—I've just thought of this. If you introduce the human figure you at once arouse either disgust or desire. Very faintly sometimes, but it's there. 'Thou shalt not make for thyself any graven image—' because one couldn't possibly make it for all other people too. Sherlock, shall we rewrite history? 'The Aesthetic Philosophy of the Decalogue.' I've always thought it remarkable of God not to have damned you or me in it. I used to put it down to him for righteousness, though now I suspect he was merely ill-informed. Still I might make out a case. Shall I choose it for a Fellowship Dissertation?"

"I’m not listening at all, you know," said Sherlock, amused. He was looking at Victor’s pretty mouth.

Victor flushed up again, but said nothing this time. “Well,” he said, “in that case, let’s have a drink and a smoke, and a bit of this cocaine, and go out in the rain. This room is stifling me.”

Sherlock readily agreed. He felt cautious, Victor’s mood so volatile that he could not predict him at all.

That night they walked for hours, silently, animated by frenetic, unnatural energy. In the dark, they stopped only once under the bright canopy of stars, poised at the crossroads between longing and dread, desire and hopelessness. Victor clasped Sherlock’s hand and brought it to his lips. Something of exquisite beauty arose in the mind of each at last, something unforgettable and eternal, but built of the humblest scraps of speech and from the simplest emotions.

"I say, will you kiss me?" asked Sherlock, when the sparrows woke in the trees above them, and far out in the woods the ringdoves began to coo.

Victor shook his head, and smiling said, “This has been perfect, this whole night. We must not ask for more than our share of happiness.” They parted, having established perfection in their lives, at all events for a time.

During the months that followed, Sherlock and Victor had as much happiness as they believed men under that star can expect. They were affectionate and consistent by nature, and, thanks to Victor, extremely cautious of their safety. They agreed to abstain from avowals ("we have said everything") and almost from caresses. Their happiness was to be together; and if they felt dissatisfied with their arrangement or if some fear or jealousy or secret shame overtook them, they had their ways of making such moments bearable—a substance still provided by an eager and well-connected Sebastian Wilkes. So they proceeded outwardly like other men. Society received them, as she receives thousands like them. Behind Society slumbered the Law. Sherlock stayed in London with Mycroft and began to dabble a little in the twin sciences of deduction and detection. Victor worked for the bar. They met regularly and loved well, but their love was almost purely of the mind.

“Why should we be slaves to our base impulses, after all?” Victor would ask, when Sherlock occasionally expressed admiration or desire for Victor’s quite lovely physical form. “We love each other—you know we do, and that shall not change—why need we debase ourselves?”

Sherlock somewhat objected to the characterization of his love as base, but as this attitude accorded precisely with the formative advice his brother Mycroft had given him as a youth, Sherlock did not resist very much.

Victor took to quoting Donne in his letters:

 _Dull sublunary lovers' love_  
_(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit_  
_Absence, because it doth remove_  
_Those things which elemented it._

 _But we, by a love so much refined_  
_That ourselves know not what it is,_  
_Inter-assurèd of the mind,_  
_Care less eyes, lips and hands to miss._

The problem was, Sherlock reflected, that he did rather miss the lips and hands. Other parts, as well, no matter how he strove not to—to say nothing of the firmness that had, on at least one occasion, made his circle just. Cocaine he found to be the perfect antidote to the strange state of emotional fulfillment tempered by intense physical and psychic dissatisfaction that Victor so often provoked in him. It was as if the drug allowed a more perfect separation of his brain from his body; it allowed each to be stimulated in an entirely different way. He had begun to obtain his own supply of the stuff shortly after coming to London, finding he required rather more than Victor was able to provide him with. By now, he was regularly injecting himself with a seven percent solution he concocted himself. It both pleased and calmed his body, while delighting and speeding his mind. More and more often, he found himself turning to his little vial. Often when he doped he imagined Mycroft cheering him on; Victor’s fingers pushing the plunger.

Things continued on in the manner for some time. Sherlock was not exactly content with his life, but he had moved into a little flat of his own in Montague Street and was developing his studies into an interesting and largely self-invented practice that he termed “the science of deduction.” Between that and time spent with Victor, he endured well enough--although no one could have said he thrived. 

It was not until late in the winter that this ultimately untenable situation came to a head. Victor’s father had taken the entire Trevor family away to Rome for a February holiday, the London winter having been a very severe one. Victor had gone unwillingly, but he invariably complied with his father’s many schemes. Sherlock had known immediately that Victor would go, and he resigned himself to a month of solitude.

“You’ll write to me?” he’d asked playfully on their last evening together.

Victor shoved him gently. “’Course I will. And you, me?”

Sherlock nodded and took up his violin. The rest of the night was passed pleasantly in the communion of song.

Victor didn’t write to Sherlock, though—not after his first, brief missive to inform him that they had arrived.

In vain, Sherlock waited. In vain he paced and in vain he sighed. A week passed in vague feelings of hurt and neglect. Then a second in anger, and a third in fear. What could have happened? Why would Victor not write? He considered writing to Pippa, if only to assure himself of Victor’s health, but he immediately discarded the idea. Victor would certainly not approve of him showing his hand so blatantly. Sherlock turned, instead, to the faithful companionship of the cocaine vial.

It was not until the final week of the Trevors’ holiday that a letter finally arrived for Sherlock. In spite, he pinned it to his mantle with a letter knife and ignored it for a full day, but that night, unable to sleep, he poured himself a whisky and at last tore it open.

He read it through once, then got up and poured himself another drink, downing it in one. He read it again, struggling to understand.

“Terribly ill… Brain fever… understanding… I finally see… Wrong. We do not love. Revolting. Revolting. This is not love.”

And again and again: “I’m sorry.”

Sherlock smiled grimly and crumpled the letter. He was well used to Victor’s prevarication, and had even been half expecting such a letter. But if he was unsurprised by the letter’s contents, they smote at his heart all the same.

* * * * *

The Trevors arrived home in early March. London was still unusually frigid.

Sherlock had not responded to Victor’s letter, thinking to hurt him the same way he had been hurt. Victor wrote once more, advising him that he had returned to London, and asking him not to visit “until his mind was steadier about it all.” Sherlock, of course, entirely ignored this. He made for the Trevor home at the first possible opportunity.

Sherlock looked like an immense animal in his dark wool coat—a dangerous one, with wild eyes. He slipped it off as soon as they were alone in Victor’s study, and came up smiling coldly. "So, you don't love me?" he challenged.

Victor flinched. "It’s late, Sherlock. Why are you here? I asked you not to come," he said, averting his eyes.

"You did. And you knew I would, anyway, didn’t you? Let’s have a drink."

"Sherlock, I don't want a row."

"Perhaps I do."

He waved the glass aside. The storm must burst. "But you mustn't talk to me like this," he continued. "It increases my difficulties."

"I want a row and I'll have it. Surely you owe me that much." He came in his oldest manner and thrust a hand into Victor's hair. "Sit down. Now why did you write me that letter?"

Victor did not reply. He was looking with growing dismay into the face he had once loved. He felt only horror, and he wondered what would happen if Sherlock tried to embrace him.

"Why? Hmm? Now you're home, you can tell me to my face."

"Go off my chair, and I will." Then he began one of the speeches he had prepared. It was scientific and impersonal, as this would wound Sherlock least. "I have become normal—like other men. I don't know how, any more than I know how I was born. It is outside reason, it is against my wish. Ask any questions you like. I shall attempt to answer them, for I couldn't go into details in my letter. But I wrote the letter because it was true."

"True." Sherlock looked askance.

"Was and is the truth."

"You say that you care for women only, not men?"

"I care for men, in the real sense, Sherlock, and always shall."

"All that presently."

He too was impersonal, but he had not got off the chair. His fingers remained on Victor's head, in his hair, but his mood had changed from anger to quiet concern. He was neither angry nor afraid, only desperate to understand.

"Who made you change?"

Victor disliked the form of the question. "No one. It was a—a sudden change in me. I cannot explain it. When I woke from my fever, I was different." He began to relate his experiences.

"Evidently the nurse," said Sherlock thoughtfully. "I wish you had told me before.... I knew something had gone wrong and thought of several things, but not this. One oughtn't to keep secrets, or they get worse. One ought to talk, talk, talk—provided one has someone to talk to, as you and I have. If you'd have told me, you would have been right by now."

"Why?"

"Because I should have made you right."

"How?"

"You'll see," he said smiling.

He moved to put his hands on Victor, but the other pulled away convulsively. "It's not the least good—I've changed."

"Can the leopard change his spots? Victor, you're in a muddle. It's part of your general health. I'm not anxious now, because you're well otherwise, you even look happy, and the rest must follow. I see you were afraid to tell me, lest it gave me pain, but we've got past sparing each other. You ought to have told me. What else am I here for? You can't trust anyone else. You and I are outlaws. All this"—he pointed to the middle-class comfort of the room—"would be taken from us if people knew."

He groaned. "But I've changed, I've changed."

We can only interpret by our experiences. Sherlock could understand muddle, not change. "You only think you've changed because you’ve been ill," he said, smiling. "Simple logic. You’ll be right again soon."

"I know my own mind," said Victor, getting warm and freeing himself from the chair. "I was never like you."

"Like me? You are me. Do you remember—”

"Of course I remember. Don't be childish."

"We love each other, and know it. Then what else—"

"Oh, for God's sake, Sherlock, hold your tongue. If I love anyone, it's Ada." Then seeing what he’d said, he added weakly, "I take her at random as an example."

But an example was the one thing Sherlock could realize. "Ada?" he said, with a change of tone. “Your nurse?”

"Only to prove to you the sort of thing."

"You scarcely know her."

"Nor did I know you, at first. As I said before, it's no special person, only a tendency."

Sherlock’s face turned dark with a thunderous rage. “I see,” he hissed. “I see exactly what you are: a hypocritical coward. And all this time, I thought—”

He spun on his heel and made for the door.

"Sherlock, it mustn't end like this—not a row," Victor implored. He rushed to insert himself between Sherlock and the study door, blocking the way. "Sit down and talk to me."

"I can’t. I can’t look at you. Don't make it worse. No—. Let me go."

Sherlock bore down on him. He pushed back: they dodged round the big chair, arguing in whispers.

They touched with hostility; Sherlock fell to the floor.

"Christ! Did I hurt you?" Victor asked, horror-struck.

"No." Sherlock shrugged and did not rise.

"My darling, I didn't mean to."

"I'm all right."

They looked at one another for a moment.

"What an ending," Sherlock whispered, "what an ending."

"I do rather love her," said Victor, very pale.

Sherlock swallowed, said nothing, and still did not rise.

Victor scarcely knew what to do. At any rate, Sherlock must go—and quietly. Without another word, he left the darkness within for that without: a sleety rain fell as he went to the station, owls hooted, and mist enveloped him. It was so late that the lamps had been extinguished in the suburban roads, and total night without compromise weighed on him

Meanwhile, in his warm study with a large drink in hand, Victor too suffered and exclaimed, "What an ending!" but he was determined that the love of women would rise in him as certainly as the sun. He would not marry his nurse—she had been but the catalyst for his change—but he would find some goddess of the new universe that had opened to him in London. Someone utterly unlike Sherlock Holmes.

As for Sherlock, after this explosion he turned to his career with renewed—indeed with single-minded and almost frenzied zeal. At first he was proud of his self-control: did not he hold Victor's precious reputation in the hollow of his hand? Was he not magnanimous in the extreme? But he grew more bitter, he wished that he had shouted while he had the strength and smashed down this front of lies. What if he too were involved? His family, his position in society—they had been nothing to him for years. He was an outlaw in disguise. Perhaps among those men who left their families and cities and took to the greenwood in old time there had been two men like himself—two. At times he entertained the dream. Two men can defy the world. Yes: the heart of his agony was loneliness. He took time to realize this, being slow to understand his own emotions. The incandescent jealousy, the mortification, the rage at his past obtuseness—these might pass, and having done much harm they did pass. Memories of Victor might pass. But the loneliness remained. He would wake gasping, retching. Victor took to visiting him in dreams. He knew there was no one, but Victor, smiling in his sweet way, said "I'm genuine this time," to torture him. Once he had a dream about the dream of the face and the voice, a dream about it, no nearer. Also old dreams of the other sort, that tried to disintegrate him. Days followed nights. He drugged when his agony grew unbearable. He drugged often—too often—and although this lessened his immediate pain, he sickened with it.

An immense silence, as of death, encircled the young man, and as he was going out to meet a contact at Scotland Yard one day it struck him that he really would be better off dead. What was the use of anything? Eating? Working? Playing stupid games with stupider people? That was all he did or had ever done.

"Life's a damn poor show," he exclaimed, crumpling up the Daily Telegraph he had been trying to read.

But having spoken, he began to contemplate suicide. There was nothing to deter him. He had no initial fear of death, and no sense of a world beyond it, nor did he mind disgracing his family. He knew that loneliness was poisoning him, so that he grew viler as well as more unhappy. Under these circumstances might he not cease? He began to compare ways and means, and would have shot himself but for an unexpected event. This event was the illness and death of his grandfather, which induced a new state of mind. Meanwhile, he had received letters from Victor, polite and distant, they always contained the sentence, "We had better not meet just yet." He grasped the situation now—his friend would do anything for him except be with him; and on these lines he was offered friendship on Victor’s own terms. Sherlock did not cease to love, but his heart had been broken; he never had wild thoughts of winning Victor back. He seemed incapable of feeling hope of any kind. He answered these letters, oddly sincere. He still wrote what was true, and confided that he was unbearably lonely and unhappy, but he wrote without emotion. It was more a tribute to their heroic past, and accepted by Trevor as such. His replies were unemotional also, and it was plain that, however much affection he professed, he no longer cared to penetrate into Sherlock's mind.

Sherlock lived on, miserable and misunderstood, as before, and increasingly lonely. One cannot write those words too often: Sherlock's loneliness, it increased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem is Donne's Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. I believe I've managed to use it in three separate fics, now? That might be a bit much, but it's just too lovely. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, friends! Your encouragement is so appreciated. 
> 
> Next week: Sherlock meets someone new.


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes meets John Watson.

May, 1910

Sherlock Holmes did not destroy himself that year, but his was a passive sort of preservation of existence. He worked much, ate little, and slept less. Above all, he consumed vast quantities of tobacco and cocaine, with occasional forays into whisky and opium wine when his mind’s excesses grew physically insupportable. It could not be said that he worked at all diligently to stay alive. He hadn't a God, he hadn't a lover—the two usual incentives to virtue. But on he struggled with his back to ease. No reward awaited him. In his work, he practised a severe and self-abnegating discipline which Mycroft Holmes looked upon with initial familiarity and approbation, but as the year advanced, with growing concern. Sherlock grew thin and sallow. His young face looked unnaturally haggard and his eyes took on a feverish, glassy brightness that Mycroft knew to be a harbinger of nothing good.

The crash came on a Sunday in spring—exquisite weather. Mycroft had appeared unexpectedly at Montague Street and ordered in a large breakfast—one of his periodical attempts to entice his brother’s reluctant appetite. Sherlock sat in resentful silence, drinking strong coffee and smoking in his dressing gown. He would not touch the excellent kidneys, nor the fruit in syrup, nor even the exquisite French pastries that Mycroft had troubled himself to procure from Bardet’s.

Mycroft sighed and reached for the Times. Perhaps next week he’d insist upon the Criterion.

“Oh, your Mr Trevor's engaged to be married," he remarked thoughtlessly after a time, without looking up from the society page. "I will tell you the name of the lady: Anne Woods, daughter of Sir H. Woods. Hum! Not a terrible match."

Sherlock choked on his cigarette.

Mycroft glanced at him in surprise, but forbore to say more. Unimaginable that Sherlock still harboured feelings for young Trevor. It had been a full year, after all, since they had even seen each other! But Sherlock sat as if turned to stone, staring out the window and allowing his cigarette to burn down to his fingers, forgotten. He scarcely noticed when Mycroft took his leave.

Sherlock had known that this day would come, of course, and had long schooled himself to indifference. But the news had upset him after all. It had come so brutally, and—what hurt him as much—Mycroft had behaved as if it were none of his concern. Nor was it, he reminded himself. It was nothing to him. It was nothing.

"Lust." He said the word out loud, his voice rasping and dry. Lust had been his undoing. He and Victor might have carried on happily for many years had not his desire overwhelmed him. Lust is negligible when absent. But Sherlock had failed to subdue it, and had paid dearly for his failure. He heard Mycroft’s voice speaking to him from long ago: “Not every impulse should be followed, Sherlock.” To avoid a repetition of this unbearable situation, he must, simply, master himself. His mind, ever practical, wasted no time in theological despair, but advanced to the grindstone. He had only to keep away from young men to ensure success. Yes, particularly from any young men to whom he felt drawn or attracted: anyone with admirable qualities. He must associate only with men he did not like, and he must cultivate his dislike into an instinctive contempt: in such a way only could he ensure his safety.

He did not know what lay ahead. He was entering into a state that would only end with impotence or death. Victor had postponed it, but also, Victor had been the catalyst for it. It had been understood between them that their love, though including the body, should not gratify it, and the understanding had proceeded from Victor. He had been nearest to words on the first night at Penge, when he refused Sherlock's kiss. He had been quite right, too. Entirely right. Then had been framed the rule that brought the golden age of their happiness, and would have sufficed till death, had Sherlock not ruined it. In his despair, Sherlock could see only the perfect contentment of this half-imagined past, and the highest happiness he could dream was a return to it. As he sat in his laboratory working, he could not see the vast curve of his life, still less the shade of Mycroft sitting opposite: sitting alone and reconsidering, touched with an astonished sort of envy. Alone in his own study in Whitehall, Mycroft was wondering for the first time about the potential of the flesh to educate the spirit, as his had never been educated. Might the flesh even develop the sluggish heart and the slack mind against their will? He was suddenly, uncomfortably uncertain.

Not a week later, Sherlock was called to the telephone by his landlady. He raised the instrument it to his ear, and, after a year of silence, heard the voice of his only friend.

"Hullo," Victor began, "hullo, you will have heard my news, Sherlock."

"Yes, but you didn't write, so I didn't."

"Quite so."

"Where are you now?"

"Off to a restaurant. We want you to come round there. Will you?"

"I—. No, I can’t. I’m sorry." Sherlock could not bear to think of such a meeting.

"Are you too busy to talk a little?"

"Oh, no."

Victor resumed, evidently relieved. "My young woman's with me. Presently she'll talk too."

"Oh. Yes, all right. Tell me all your plans."

"The wedding's next month."

"Well. Congratulations, then. Best of luck."

Neither could think of anything else to say.

"Now for Anne."

"I'm Anne Woods," said a girl's voice.

"My name's Holmes."

"What?"

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Mine's Anne Woods, but I can't think of anything to say." She laughed nervously.

"Congratulations, I suppose."

"You're the eighth friend of Victor’s I've talked to in this way this morning."

"The eighth?"

"I can't hear."

"I said the eighth."

"Oh yes, now I'll give Victor a turn. Goodbye."

Victor resumed. "By the way, can you come down to Penge next week? It's short notice, but later all will be chaos."

"I'm afraid I can't do that very well. I’ve a case on just now, coming to a crucial point. I can’t get away."

"What, with the Yard?"

"Yes, a new detective named Lestrade."

"Hum. How about August? Not September, that's almost certainly the by-election. But come in August and see us through that awful Park v. Village cricket match."

"Thanks, I—. Perhaps I could. You had better write nearer the time." Sherlock cursed himself for a fool.

"Oh, of course. Listen, I—”

“I'd better ring off. Goodbye, Victor."

“Goodbye, goodbye.”

* * * * *

Sherlock took a week's holiday in August and reached Penge according to invitation three days before the Park v. Village cricket match. He arrived in an odd and angry mood. He had been thinking over his past with Victor, and reliving each of his dearest memories with the bitter knowledge of their present relations, thinking to eradicate such memories entirely from his mind. It was more difficult than he expected, and that fact made him cross.

As he drove up through the park he saw a gamekeeper dallying with two young maids, and felt a pang of envy. The girls were damned ugly, which the man wasn't: somehow this made it worse, and he stared at the trio, feeling cruel and respectable and false. The girls broke away giggling; the man looked up and noticed his stare, which he returned furtively and then thought it safer to touch his cap; Sherlock had spoilt his little game. But he would pursue them again when Sherlock had passed, and all over the world girls would meet men, to kiss them and be kissed. Why could he not have such easy happiness, he wondered? Why could he not alter his temperament and toe the line, as Victor had? Why must he choose between utter solitude and unthinkable ruin?

"Victor's out," said the young hostess artlessly when they met. "He sends you his love or something, and will be in to dinner. Archie will valet for you if you wish? But I don't believe you want looking after."

Sherlock smiled and accepted some tea. The new Mrs. Trevor was acceptably pretty and conventionally charming. Dull, Sherlock thought. Dull, dull, dull. She could not begin to approach Victor’s radiance. The drawing-room had its old air; Sherlock felt his usual discomposure.

Groups of people stood about with the air of arranging something, and though Victor's mother no longer presided she had come up for the week and rather ran the show. She had expected Victor to be back by now, she said, and it was the more disappointing because tomorrow Victor would have to be really away. The agent, who knew the constituency, was showing him round. Mr Holmes must be forgiving, and he must help them in the cricket match.

"It rather depends upon some other plans. ... I might have to...”

She glanced at his face with a sudden sharpness, then said, "Wouldn't you like to see your room?—Archie, take Mr Holmes to the Russet Room."

"Thanks.... Is there a post out?"

"Not this evening, but you can wire. Wire you'll stop. ... Or oughtn't I to interfere?"

"I may have to wire—I'm not quite sure. Thanks frightfully."

Then he followed Archie to the Russet Room, thinking "Victor might have ... for the sake of the past he might have been here to greet me. He ought to have known how wretched I should feel." He might not love Victor anymore, he thought, but he could still suffer from him. The rain poured out of a leaden sky on to the park, the woods were silent. As twilight fell, he entered a new circle of torment.

He stopped up in his room till dinner, fighting with ghosts he had loved. Could he persist in his new philosophy of entire restraint? Was it not his duty to do so, though body and soul would be—violated? With the world as it is, one must love or decay. How could he make that choice?

"Is Mr Trevor back?" he inquired, when the housemaid brought hot water.

"Yes, sir."

"Just in?"

"No. About an hour, sir."

“I see. Thank you.”

She drew the curtains and hid the sight but not the sound of the rain.

Meanwhile Sherlock scribbled a wire. "Detective Lestrade, Scotland Yard, London," he wrote. "Away for research. Wire if needed. Holmes. Care of Trevor, Penge, Wiltshire."

"I’ll send it out with Hobbs right away, sir."

"Thanks so much," he said obsequiously, and grimaced as soon as he was alone. “Care of Trevor.” God help him, he must pull himself together. In the drawing-room he greeted Victor without a tremor. They shook hands warmly, Victor saying, "You look awfully fit. Do you know whom you are going to take in to dinner?" and introducing him to some girl or other. Victor had become quite the squire. All his grievances against society had passed since his marriage. They found they had nothing at all to talk about.

There was stilted conversation all through dinner about entirely inconsequential things, with the new Mrs. Trevor interjecting often. Sherlock could not warm to her—he would not—but he was grateful to her for smoothing things along. He could see that she would be a tremendous asset in his friend’s new political aspirations. At ten o’clock, Victor stirred himself. Rising, he called across the hall to the gamekeeper who had come in for orders, “Watson, the gentlemen'll shoot tomorrow—I'm sure I don't know what, but come round at half ten. Shall we turn in now?"

"Early to bed's the rule here, as you know, Mr Holmes," said young Mrs. Trevor. Then she wished the three servants good night and led the way upstairs. Sherlock lingered to choose a book.

"Damnation, isn't there anything interesting?" he muttered after fifteen minutes of fruitless search through insipid shelves.

“Might Lecky's _History of Rationalism_ fill a gap, sir?” a voice asked from nowhere. Sherlock started. It was the gamekeeper, Watson, peering over his shoulder.

“Lecky’s _History of_ … Yes! Yes, perhaps.” He took it up. “Read it, have you?”

“Christ, no,” Watson snorted. “Not my area.”

Sherlock turned to look at him with sudden interest. “No? And yet, you know enough of the book to recommend it, and enough of me—at least, so you imagine—to think that it would suit my taste.” Watson was an importation—part of the larger life that had come into Penge with politics and Anne Woods. He was smarter than old Mr Ayres, the head keeper, and knew it: one of the new class of servants who didn’t care to ‘know his place.’

Watson shrugged. “Just a notion I had. I saw you pick up the Swift, and, well. It’s a natural connection, isn’t it? I meant no offence, sir.” His words were both polite and deferential, but his keen eyes were not. He looked at Sherlock frankly, steadily, and Sherlock’s face heated under his gaze. With a tiny smirk, Watson turned and went out.

Lecky it was, but on returning to his room Sherlock’s mind proved unequal, and after a few minutes he threw it on the bed and began to brood. In the dreariness of Penge his purpose grew stronger. Life had proved a blind alley, with a muck heap at the end of it, and he must cut back and start again. Farewell, beauty and warmth. Farewell, love and happiness. They ended in muck and must go. Thoughts of Victor. Thoughts of any dashing you man—of that Watson fellow, God help him!—all must go. Drawing the curtains, he gazed long into the rain, and sighed, and struck his own face, and bit his own lips until he tasted blood.

The next day was even drearier and the only thing to be said in its favour was that it had the unreality of a nightmare. Archie woke him with incessant chatter, the rain dribbled, and in the sacred name of sport they were urged after rabbits over the Penge estate. Sometimes they shot the rabbits, sometimes missed them, sometimes they tried ferrets and nets. The rabbits needed keeping down and perhaps that was why the entertainment had been forced on them: there was a prudent strain in Victor. They returned to lunch and Sherlock thought to escape to his room for the afternoon, but Archie thought the company had better go after the bunnies again, and he was too depressed to refuse. The rain was now less, on the other hand the mist was thicker, the mud stickier, and towards tea time they lost a ferret. Dinner arrived at eight, but so did the politicians, and after dinner the drawing-room ceiling dripped into basins and saucers. Then to the Russet Room, the same weather, the same despair.

Unusual restlessness was on him. It recalled the initial night at Oxford, that first night with Victor. The rain stopped, suddenly, and he wanted to walk about in the night air and listen to the dripping trees. Ghostly but perfect, the evening primroses were expanding in the shrubbery, and stirred him by their odours. Victor had shown him evening primroses in the past, but had never told him they smelt. He liked being out of doors, among the night birds and bats, stealing hither and thither bare-headed. And—alone. Alone! Alone was a protection; it was all to the good. Surely. Surely! He was very near to despair.

As he wandered about, Watson came up, touched his cap, and inquired whether he would shoot tomorrow. Obviously he would, since it seemed to be the required activity, but the question had been asked in order to pave the way for a conversation.

“Did you enjoy the Lecky, sir?” was its form.

Sherlock, with his resolution firmly in mind, responded with cold formality. "Fine, Watson, thank you," he said, and turned away.

Sherlock strolled for another hour in the shrubbery. His encounter with Watson had heated him. He felt himself unaccountably drawn to the man, and knew that this was an early test of his resolve. What did it matter to him whether Watson’s eyes were cobalt or pewter or midnight blue? Why should the pleasing shape of his shoulder linger in Sherlock’s mind, or the timbre of his voice? It was nothing to him, nothing. He walked on. Ah, the lovely scents of nature, those bushes where you could hide, that sky as black as the bushes! They were turning away from him. Indoors was his place and there he'd moulder, a respectable pillar of society who has never had the chance to misbehave. The alley that he was pacing opened through a swing gate into the park, but the damp there might muddy his shoes, so he felt bound to return. As he turned he struck against corduroys, and was held for a moment by both elbows; it was again Watson, for there was evidently no avoiding the man.

At that instant, a peal of thunder rang out near-simultaneously with a sudden flash of lightning. Watson’s hands tightened on his arms; it was as if an electric current passed through the chain of insignificant events, illuminated them with unbearable brightness, and smashed immediately back into darkness, leaving them dazed.

"Damnation, what a night," Watson said. His breath puffed on Sherlock’s cheek, delicate and perfumed with the scent of fruit; it had further to be feared that the young man had stolen an apricot. Scents were everywhere that night, despite the cold, and Sherlock inhaled deeply.

"Well,” Watson breathed, “good night, then, sir." He released his hold and stepped away.

Sherlock spoke without thinking, still feeling the warmth of Watson’s hands on him. “They--they tell me you’re emigrating?”

"That's my idea, sir," came the voice. “I’ve nothing to hold me to England.”

"Well, good luck to you."

"Thank you, sir. It seems rather strange…" His voice was different in the dark and the out-of-doors: dreamy and musing.

"America, I suppose."

"Not America, although I considered it. India."

"Ah, ah, fine."

"Have you been there yourself, then?"

"Rather not! London for me," said Sherlock, his hand again brushing against corduroys. “I can’t imagine ever living anywhere else.”

“No?” Watson sounded surprised, though it was too dark to properly see his face. “I always felt the same. But England--” It sounded as though he were talking to himself. "England feels less welcoming than it once did." 

They harmonized in the darkness. The quietness of the hour suited them, and by mutual, unspoken decision they walked on together for a time. Sherlock was followed by a strange sense of well-being which lasted until he reached the house and Watson took his leave.

His mood, however, took a radical turn when he regained his room.

He was astonished to find Victor Trevor sitting upon his bed, wanting an intimate talk. This might have moved him had it come earlier, but he had been so pained by the inhospitality, he had spent so lonely and so imbecilic a day, that he could respond to the past no longer. He wanted only to be alone. Victor felt the visit had been a failure, but, as he remarked, "Politics can't wait, and you happen to coincide with the rush." Sherlock politely and coldly said that he understood entirely.

"I've thought more often of you than you imagine, Sherlock my dear,” Victor ventured to say. “As I said last autumn, I care for you in the real sense, and always shall. We were young idiots, weren't we?—but one can get something even out of idiocy. Development. No, more than that, intimacy. You and I know and trust one another just because we were once idiots.” Victor clasped his hand between his own and kissed him very gently on each of his fingers.

Sherlock shuddered.

"You don't mind?"

"No." His heart was racing.

"Sherlock dear, I wanted just to show I hadn't forgotten the past. Don't let's mention it ever again, but I wanted to show just this once."

"… All right."

"Aren't you thankful it's ended properly?"

"How properly?"

"Instead of that muddle last year."

"Oh."

"Now kiss me, and I'll go."

Sherlock hesitated, mind warring with body, and then applied his lips to the starched cuff of a dress shirt.

“Not like that. Really, Sherlock. Just—just once.”

Sherlock, helpless, complied.

Having so conquered, Victor withdrew, more friendly than ever, and insistent Sherlock should return to Penge as soon as circumstances allowed. Sherlock thought he’d better not come again, not ever.

He had taken to sleeping badly during the past year, and knew as soon as he lay down that this would be a night of danger. The events of the last hour had excited him, and clashed against the certainties in his mind. How vivid, if complex, were his impressions, how the tangle of flowers and fruit wreathed his brain! Objects he had never seen, he could see tonight, though curtained in tightly. Ah to get out to them! Ah for darkness—not the darkness of a house which coops up a man among furniture, but the darkness where he can be free! Vain wish! Sherlock rose from his bed and drew the curtains and fell on his knees, leaning his chin upon the window sill and allowing the raindrops to sprinkle his hair. His tears mingled with the rain, his body sang with sorrow, and all was one.

What was he doing? He felt himself to be dissolving, mind and flesh tearing themselves to pieces with feverish and fruitless energy. He pulled out his dressing case and removed the little bottle of laudanum that the had brought with him. He took a large draught, and lay back on the bed once more. The tension in his body slowly lessened and his breathing quieted. His desperation, too, began to abate. As the trance continued to work, Sherlock had the illusion that the large portrait that hung over the desk had changed, now at his will, now against it, from female to male, and come leaping down from the wall and knelt over him. ... He moaned, half asleep. There was something better in life than this rubbish, if only he could get to it—love—nobility—big spaces where men clasped peace, spaces no loneliness could reach, but they existed for ever, full of woods some of them, and arched with majestic sky and a friend. He really was asleep when he sprang up and flung wide the curtains with a cry of "Come!" The action awoke him; what had he done that for? A mist covered the grass of the park, and the tree trunks rose out of it like the channel marks in the estuary near his old school. It was very cold. He shivered and clenched his fists. The moon had risen. Below him was the drawing-room, and the men who were repaving the tiles on the roof of the bay had left their ladder resting against his window sill. What had they done that for? He shook the ladder and glanced into the woods, but the wish to go into them vanished as soon as he thought it. What use was it? He was too old for fun in the damp. But as he returned to his bed a little noise sounded, a noise so intimate that it might have arisen inside his own body. He seemed to crackle and burn and saw the ladder's top quivering against the moonlit air. The head and the shoulders of a man rose up, paused, a gun was leant against the window sill very carefully, and someone he scarcely knew moved towards him and knelt beside him and whispered, "Were you calling for me? Were you? I knew it. ... I knew when I first saw you, I knew," and then Watson was touching him, kissing him—urgently.

At his touch, so warm and alive and real, Sherlock loosed an involuntary sob. Watson started back in alarm and Sherlock’s eyes were wet, but Sherlock pulled him inexorably down once more.

* * * * *

"Had I best be going now, sir?" Unaccountably shy, Sherlock buried his face in Watson’s neck and did not answer.

"We mustn't fall asleep! Awkward if anyone came in," he continued, with a pleasant blurred laugh. Sherlock was ever more astonished. The man seemed to feel no regret at what they had done: no flush of shame marred his cheek; no fear shuttered his eyes. He wasn’t eager to depart; indeed, he seemed relaxed and—even happy!

Sherlock managed to reply, "You mustn't call me sir," and the laugh sounded again, as if brushing aside all worries. There seemed to be charm and insight, yet Sherlock’s discomfort increased. Watson would soon leave him alone again soon, he knew. Above all, he must not allow himself to begin to care.

"May I ask your name?" he said awkwardly.

"I'm Watson."

"I know you're Watson—I meant your other name."

"It’s just John."

"John. John." Sherlock kissed bare shoulder, neck, jaw. He was weak after all, and could not make himself stop, not when John’s hands were in his hair, and his body so warmly pliant.

"It's only my name."

"I'm called Sherlock."

"Sherlock, then. I saw you when you first drove up, Sherlock, wasn't it Tuesday? I remember wondering why you looked at me like that, angry and gentle both together."

"Who were those people with you?" said Sherlock, after a pause.

"Oh! That was only Mill and her cousin having a bit of a lark. Then I believe you had great trouble to suit yourself over a book? Didn't read it, did you?" He shoved him playfully on the shoulder.

"How ever did you know I didn't read it?"

"Saw you leaning out of the window instead. I was out on the lawn."

"Do you mean you were out in all that infernal rain the whole time?"

"Yes. I don’t sleep much."

"I don’t sleep much myself."

"That’s well for me. Excuse the question but is that door locked?"

"I'll lock it." As he did so, the feeling of awkwardness returned. Was this how he kept to his resolutions? And yet, he could not resist the temptation waiting for him in his bed; could not force himself away.

Sometime later, they fell asleep.

They slept separate at first, as if afraid to inconvenience the other, but towards morning a movement began, and they woke deep in each other's arms. "I’d best be going now," John repeated, but Sherlock was resting utterly at last, and murmured "No, no," holding him closer.

"Sir, the church bell has gone five, you'll have to release me."

"Sherlock, I'm Sherlock."

"But the church has—"

"Damn the church."

John laughed and said, "Alright, damn the church. I’d rather stay here with you, that’s certain, but I've the cricket pitch to help roll for the match." He did not move, though, but nestled back into Sherlock’s arms. In the faint gray light he seemed to be smiling.

"Damn the cricket, as well—You're going to bloody India!"

"I’ll see you before I go, I swear I will."

"Did you ever dream you'd a friend, John?” Sherlock was dreamy, half conscious and half elsewhere. “Nothing else but just 'my friend', he trying to help you and you him. A friend," he repeated, sentimental suddenly. "Someone to last your whole life and you his, belonging to each other, body and soul. I suppose such a thing can't really happen outside sleep."

“Not in England, that's certain.”

Sherlock hummed and closed his eyes again. “Then let us sleep.”

But he day was calling; unhappiness must resume with the sunrise. John rose and dressed. When he reached the window Sherlock called, "John," and he turned as if pulled by a string.

"Remember your promise."

John looked very soft. "Go back to sleep, Sherlock," he said kindly, and kissed him again, natural as breathing. Then he took up the gun that had guarded them through the night.

The tips of the ladder quivered against the dawn as he descended, then were motionless. There was a tiny crackle from the gravel, a tiny clink from the fence that divided garden and park: then all was as if nothing had been, and silence absolute filled the Russet Room, broken after a time by the sounds of a new day.


	5. Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Sherlock arrived home from his dinner with Mycroft, there was a telegram waiting on his tray. His heart gave a great leap in his chest and he seized it with no little trepidation, almost trembling as he opened it.  
> "Come back, waiting tonight at boathouse, Penge. Yours, John."

After Watson disappeared out the window, Sherlock unlocked the door and dashed back into bed just barely ahead of the approaching valet.

"Curtains drawn, sir, nice air, nice day for the match," said Archie entering in some excitement with the tea. He looked at the head of black hair that was all the visitor showed. No answer came, and, disappointed of a morning chat, he gathered up the dinner-jacket and its appurtenances, and took them away to brush. Sherlock sat up and drank a cup of tea. His mind began to race. Had Archie meant anything by "Curtains drawn, sir"? Did he suspect?

"Now what will you wear, sir, I wonder?" inquired Archie, returning. "You'll put on your cricketing flannels straight away perhaps; that rather than the tweed."

"All right."

"College blazer with them, sir?"

"No—never mind."

"Very good, sir." He straightened out a pair of socks and continued meditatively: "Oh, they've moved that ladder at last, I see. About time."

Sherlock then saw that the tips against the sky had disappeared. "I could have sworn it was here when I brought in your tea, sir. Still, one can never be certain."

"No, one can't," agreed Sherlock, speaking with difficulty and with the sense that he had lost his bearings. He felt relief when Archie finally left him in peace, but it was overshadowed by the thought of the happy Trevors and the breakfast table. As he dressed, the trickle of discomfort gathered force. Though not a dandy, he had the suburban gentleman's usual show of toilet appliances, and they all seemed alien. Then the gong boomed, and just as he was going down to breakfast he saw a flake of mud close to the window sill. Watson had been careful, but not careful enough. His head spun. He was headachy and faint when, clothed all in white, he at last descended to take his place in society.

“Good morning!” young Mrs. Trevor trilled as he approached the breakfast room. Then she saw his face, which was greenwhite, and cried, "Oh, but you're not well."

"I know," he said, trembling.

Men hate to be fussed, she knew, so she only replied, "I'm frightfully sorry, I'll send some ice to your room."

"That’s very kind."

"We want to be kind to you—naturally. When one's happy oneself one wants the same happiness for others."

"That is not possible."

"Mr Holmes—!"

"The same happiness is not possible for everyone. That's why life's this Hell. If you do a thing you're damned, and if you don't you're damned—" he paused, and continued. "Sorry. I do apologize. I’m not well—should like a little ice."

She ran for it, and released he flew back up to the Russet Room. It brought home to him the precise facts of the situation, and he was violently sick. He felt better at once, but realized that he must leave Penge. He changed into the serge, packed, and was soon downstairs again with a neat little story.

"Terrible headache," he told Anne. "Can’t bear the sun at all. I’m sorry about the match, but I think I'd better be in town."

"Of course you must want your own home, feeling so wretched," she cried, all sympathy.

"Yes, of course," echoed Victor, who was dressed for the match. "We'd hoped you'd last the week with us, Sherlock, but we quite understand, and if you must go you must go."

Sherlock nearly sagged with relief. Once away from Penge he would see clearly perhaps.

* * * * *

In that hope, he was mistaken. Sherlock remained as muddled and confused as he had ever been, and even work became impossible. He resolved to discuss the matter with his brother, whose intelligence and sense he grudgingly respected. Accordingly, he made a reservation at Simpson’s and sent an invitation to an extremely surprised Mycroft Holmes.

Sherlock began before the first course had even arrived. "Since we last met, Mycroft, I went wrong with a—. Christ! With the gamekeeper at Penge. He’s not— he’s not the usual sort. The way he talks is… He’s…” Sherlock broke off, pale cheeks flushed, furious with his own incoherence. “I should never have gone up. I don’t know what to do!"

Mycroft’s left eyebrow twitched. "I can scarcely advise you on such a point."  
  
"No, but listen—I tried to keep right. After this mess with Victor, I swore it off entirely, just as you advised. Yes, yes, no need to look so smug."

"And yet, this gamekeeper…?"

Sherlock groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I know. I know! I shouldn’t have done it, but I was—I was so very unhappy, Mycroft. I couldn’t bear it. And then, there he was. He was so kind, you see, and so willing.” Mycroft was astonished to see that his eyes were wet.

“Oh, Sherlock,” he said sadly. He was not surprised by the depth of Sherlock's misery, but was profoundly shocked by his honesty in revealing it. He took refuge in his usual rationality. “Let us consider the matter pragmatically. This gamekeeper—he’s an uneducated man, I assume? Few prospects? Unknown to you? Surely you see that he’s got you in his power. In court would he have a case?"

"I am no lawyer," came the wavering voice. "On this matter you should consult your solicitor."

"I hardly think that’s necessary at this stage," Mycroft said. “But you must tell me all, Sherlock. Every detail. I shall do my best to shield you from any dire consequences, on condition your confession is exhaustive. Otherwise you waste both my time and your own."

It was exhaustive. He spared neither his lover nor himself. When all was detailed and laid out before his brother, the perfection of the night appeared as a transient grossness, and Sherlock felt rather ill.

“Well, well,” Mycroft said when he had heard all. “The situation is not as ominous as I feared. Such a man would be unlikely to bring public charge against you. Blackmail, of course, is another matter entirely, but we shall bide our time. It may be that we have nothing to fear.”

Sherlock fervently hoped it would be so, but he heard the note of doubt in his brother’s voice.

When Sherlock arrived home from his dinner with Mycroft, there was a telegram waiting on his tray. His heart gave a great leap in his chest and he seized it with no little trepidation, almost trembling as he opened it.

" _Come back, waiting tonight at boathouse, Penge. Yours, John_." A blunt message to be handed in through the local post-office! Presumably one of the Trevors’ houseservants had supplied his address, for the telegram was fully directed. A nice situation! At worst, it contained every promise of blackmail, at the best it was incredibly careless. Of course he shouldn't answer—Mycroft, for one, would never let him live it down. There could be no thought of another meeting. Despite all of this, and entirely against his will, Sherlock’s heart thumped hard with pleasure that John still thought of him. Ruthlessly, he pushed down his pleasure, his hope. This was a prelude to blackmail, surely. He must listen to sense. He could not trust his own mind in this matter, but must replace his own impulses with Mycroft’s rational advice.

But all that night his body yearned for John’s, despite his efforts. He called it lustful, a word easily uttered, and opposed to it his work, his responsibilities, his position in society—his own best interests! But his body would not be convinced. Chance had mated it too perfectly, and it ached in his absence. Neither argument nor threat could silence it, so in the morning, feeling exhausted and ashamed, he telephoned to Mycroft and asked him to employ the considerable resources of his office to look into Watson’s past.

Several days passed. Sherlock turned his mind to his work, striving to drown out his chaotic emotions with the strict logic and discipline of deductive reasoning. He solved two criminal cases, a theft and a serious assault, with a single-minded rapidity that astonished even Lestrade, who had come to know him well. The next morning, a letter came. It arrived at breakfast and he read it under his landlady’s sharp eyes. It was phrased as follows.

_Mr Holmes. Dear Sherlock._   
_I waited both nights in the boathouse. I said the boathouse as it is the safest and most private place, and snug as well. Please come tomorrow night or next. If you are willing to leave Mr. Trevor, pretend you want a stroll, easily managed, then come down to the boathouse. I cannot cease thinking of you, and of our night together. I have no peace. I get no sleep. Sherlock, let me share with you once more before leaving England if it is not asking to much. I have key, will let you in. I leave per SS Normannia on August 29. I do so long to talk with one of my arms round you, then place both arms round you and share with you, the above now seems sweeter to me than words can say. If that night meant anything to you, come—please come._   
_Yours respectfully,_   
_J. Watson._

Sherlock restrained himself from making any obvious sign of distress, but as soon as his landlady had left his rooms, he groaned mightily and thrust his head into his hands, tugging violently on his dark curls. If you go you are ruined, he told himself. You must not consider it. If you reply your letter will be used against you. You must not reply. You are in danger, but he hasn't a scrap of your handwriting, and he's leaving England in ten days' time. Lie low, and hope for the best. He had been very foolish, but if he played his cards carefully for the next ten days he ought to get through. He telephoned again to Mycroft, who had little information to offer. John Watson, it seemed, was entirely ordinary and unremarkable, with no scandals in his past and no apparent criminal tendencies. Mycroft’s voice was subdued; he sounded unusually pensive as he rang off.

Three days later, another letter arrived. This one was longer. The blood began pounding over Sherlock’s body as he unfolded it, but his head kept cool, and he managed to read it as a whole, not merely sentence by sentence.

_Mr. Holmes._   
_Sherlock. You do not treat me fairly. I am sailing next week, per SS Normannia. I telegraphed and wrote to you; it is not kind of you to fail to reply. I am on the brink of leaving England altogether, and I wish—. You spoke to me of friends—friends to last your whole life; but you do not write and you do not come. Why did you say "call me Sherlock?" Why did you speak to me as you did, and share yourself with me, and then treat me so coldly? Sherlock, are you angry? Has Mr Trevor spoken to you about me, about certain girls? I can't help being rather friendly, it is some men's nature, but you must not be jealous. It was before you came. It is natural to want a girl, it is a part of human nature. It is natural to want a man, as well. Lord, I have never come like that to a gentleman before. How my heart did pound! It was not a usual night for me, Sherlock. You are something quite extraordinary, and I knew it the moment I first beheld you. I believe you felt something, too. Perhaps I annoyed you by disturbing your sleep so early? Sherlock, it was your fault, your head was on my chest. I had my work, I am Mr Trevor's servant, not yours. And by the by, I know all about you and Mr Trevor; perhaps I misunderstood you and he is the “friend” you were speaking of. I say again: you do not treat me fairly. I am not your servant. I will show respect where it's due only, that is to say to gentlemen who are gentlemen: who speak truth and do rightly by all men. Sherlock, I am coming to London on Tuesday. If you do not want me to show up at your home, say where in London. It is in your own best interest to see me. I believe you understand me._   
_J. Watson._

This last was the outstanding point, surely, yet Sherlock brooded over the letter as a whole. There was evidently some unsavoury gossip around about himself and Victor, but what did it matter now? What did it matter if they had been spied on or gossiped about in the past? He was concerned with the present. Why should Watson have mentioned such gossip? What was he up to? Why had he flung out these words, some kind, some angry, some ominous? When he laid down the letter and took up his pipe, it seemed the sort of letter he might have written himself. Muddle-headed? Well, yes. If so, it was in his own line! He didn't want such a letter, he didn't know what it signified—half a dozen things possibly—but he couldn't well be cold over it. Disregarding, almost, the entire content of the letter, he simply yearned to see John again.

It was all so plain now. He had lied to himself. He phrased it "been fed upon lies," but lies are the natural food of boyhood, and he had eaten greedily. His first resolve was to be more careful in the future. He would live truthfully, not because it mattered to anyone now, but for his own sake. He would not deceive himself. He would not—and this was the test—pretend to be anything other than what he was. He loved men and always had loved them. He longed to embrace them and mingle his being with theirs.

After this crisis Sherlock became a man. Hitherto—if human beings can be estimated—he had not been worth anyone's affection, but ambivalent, confused, dissembling to others, because to himself. Now he had the highest gift to offer. He still suffered, yet a sense of triumph had come elsewhere. Pain had shown him a niche behind the world's judgements, whither he could withdraw. There was still much to learn, and years passed before he explored certain other abysses in his being—horrible enough they were. But he discovered the method and looked no more at scratches in the sand. He had awoken too late for happiness, but not for strength, and could feel an austere joy, as of a warrior who is homeless but stands fully armed.

Throwing caution to the wind, he replied, _"JW: Yes. Meet me Tuesday 5.00 p.m. entrance of British Museum. SH_." That struck him as best. They were unlikely to be disturbed at the museum by anyone whom he knew. He smiled, and all unknowingly his face became mischievous and happy. He smiled also at the thought that Victor hadn't quite kept out of the mud after all, and though the face now hardened into lines less pleasing, it proved him an athlete, who had emerged from a year of suffering uninjured. A new vigour consumed him, and he passed the intervening days in intensive work and study.

On Tuesday afternoon, the rain was coming down in typical fashion, tapping on a million roofs and occasionally effecting an entry. It beat down the smoke, and caused the fumes of petrol and the smell of wet clothes to linger mixed on the streets of London. In the great forecourt of the British Museum it could fall uninterruptedly, plumb onto the draggled doves and the helmets of the police. So dark was the afternoon that some of the lights had been turned on inside, and the great building suggested a tomb, miraculously illuminated by spirits of the dead. John arrived first, dressed no longer in corduroys but in a new blue suit and bowler hat—part of his outfit for his coming voyage. He sprang, as he had boasted, of a respectable family—publicans, small tradesmen—and it was only by accident that he had appeared as an untamed son of the woods. Indeed, he liked the woods and the fresh air and water, he liked them better than anything and he liked to protect life, but woods provide no salaries, and young men who want to get on must leave them. He was determined in a blind way to get on now. It was just—this business with Sherlock Holmes had absorbed him, and the servants’ gossip about Sherlock’s dalliance with Victor had hurt and enraged him. He had thought he understood Sherlock—thought they had understood each other—and he was too stubborn a man to let go of a truth once he held it. He tramped over the courtyard, then took the steps in a series of springs; having won the shelter of the portico he stood motionless, except for the flicker of his eyes. These sudden changes of pace were typical of the man, who always advanced as a skirmisher, was always coiled for action. When Sherlock drove up he became half giddy, half furious. Gentlemen he knew, mates he knew; what class of creature was this Holmes who had said, "Call me Sherlock,” all the while loving another man? Raising his chin, he stood defiant.

Sherlock approached this most dangerous day without any plan at all. He did not inform Mycroft of the rendez-vous. It would have been prudent, perhaps, to have an ally, and yet he wished—he felt he must—face John alone. He had no expectation of what might happen, yet something kept rippling in his mind like muscles beneath a healthy skin. It was a new, strange sensation, entirely unfamiliar to him. When he saw John's face glowing through the dirty air his own tingled slightly, and he determined not to strike until (unless?) he was struck. "Here you are," he said, raising a pair of gloves to his hat. "This rain's the limit. Let's have a talk inside."

"Where you wish."

Sherlock looked at him with some friendliness, and they entered the building. As they did so, John raised his head and sneezed like a lion.

"Got a chill? It's the weather."

"I daresay. Lord, what is all this?" he asked.

"Artifacts belonging to the nation." They paused in the corridor of Roman emperors. "Yes, it's bad weather. There've only been two fine days. And one fine night," he added mischievously, surprising himself.

But John made no reply. It wasn't the opening he wanted. He pretended not to understand the allusion, and sneezed again. The roar echoed down vestibules, and his face, convulsed and distorted, took a sudden appearance of hunger.

"Listen,” Sherlock said suddenly, earnestly. “I'm glad you wrote to me the second time. I liked both your letters. I'm not offended—you've never done anything wrong. I'll tell you straight out I enjoyed being with you, if that's the trouble. Is it? I want you to tell me. I just don't know."

But John Watson had a temper, and it took more than a string of pretty words to assuage it. “Mr. Holmes,” he said, “You speak well. You speak like a gentleman. Your behaviour is something else entirely, as I have reason to know."

Sherlock found himself trying to get underneath the words.

"To speak to me the way you did,” John continued, “to say the things you said to me, and all the time you were such _good friends_ with Mr. Trevor." He faltered as he spoke these last words. “You used me ill, sir.”

"With regard to Mr Trevor," said Sherlock, feeling inclined to speak on this point: "it's quite correct that I cared for him and he for me once, but he changed, and now he doesn't care any more for me nor I for him. It's the end."

"End of what?"

"Of our friendship. Of our acquaintance, even, I shouldn’t doubt."

"Holmes, have you heard what I was saying?"

"I hear everything you say," said Sherlock thoughtfully, and continued in exactly the same tone: "Watson, why do you think it's 'natural' to care both for women and men? You wrote so in your letter. It isn't natural for me. I have really got to think that 'natural' only means oneself."

The man seemed interested. "Well, I don’t know. I’ve always taken fancies to both. Haven’t you, really?”

"Never."

"Would you want a woman, if you could?" he asked, eyes sharp.

"It's not much use wanting. Or wanting to want, even."

“Perhaps not.” While speaking, he caught sight of a winged Assyrian bull, and his expression altered into amused wonder.

"How strange," he remarked. "Imagine the machinery needed to make a thing like that."

"Indeed," said Sherlock, also impressed by the bull. "I couldn't tell you. Here seems to be another one."

"A pair, so to speak. Would these have been ornaments?"

"This one has five legs."

"So's mine. A curious idea." Standing each by his monster, they looked at each other, and smiled. Each felt it an unutterable relief to be once again in the other’s presence.

“This has been a serious business, hasn’t it? And no need for it after all.” John’s eyes crinkled when he smiled, and Sherlock was instantly captivated.

"Yes, awfully serious," remarked Sherlock, and rested his hand on John’s shoulder, so that his fingers touched the back of his neck, doing this merely because he wished to do it, not for another reason. “I thought you were trying to blackmail me, you know,” he murmured.

John started beside him, then bent nearly double in sudden laughter. "Don't you worry—I'd never harm you, you've too much pluck."

"Pluck be damned," said Sherlock, tugging John into a corner. He bent down and kissed him. For long minutes, they were insensible to their surroundings, knowing only the imperative of their bodies to be together, close as possible and closer, even, than that.

“Listen, are you quite sure it’s finished with Trevor?” John asked roughly against his mouth when they finally broke apart. “I couldn’t bear to think of you with him.”

“Yes, yes.” Sherlock’s breath was short. “Of course it’s over. How could I want anyone else, John?”

John breathed a sigh of relief, then pulled Sherlock down for another hard kiss. "I should have known from the first that I loved you. I’ve been wild with it. Too late ... everything's always too late," he whispered. “We’ve been such fools, not to trust each other—to trust this thing between us, this strange thing.”

The rows of old statues tottered behind them and Sherlock muttered, "Come outside, come with me. We can't stay here."

They left the enormous and overheated building, they passed the library, supposed catholic, seeking darkness and rain.

Unable to part yet ignorant of what could next come, they strode raging through the last glimmering of the sordid day; night, ever one in her quality, came finally, and Sherlock recovered his self-control and could look at the new material that passion had gained for him. In a deserted square, against railings that encircled some trees, they came to a halt, and Sherlock cursed the cold drizzle.

But John grew suddenly fierce. "It rained harder than this in the boathouse. It was colder, too. Why did you not come?"

"Brain problems."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Brain problems. I was in a spin, you see; didn’t know what to think, at all. Couldn’t deduce a thing about you. I detest such blindness. I didn't come or write because I wanted to get away from you without wanting you. You won't understand. You kept dragging me back and I got awfully frightened. I felt you every time I tried to sleep. You came hard at me. I knew something was wrong but couldn't tell what, so kept pretending it was you. Kept telling myself you meant me harm. It wasn’t you, though, was it?"

"I never meant you harm. Not ever. Not even when I was—jealous."

"No. The harm comes from—from the situation. From the world. Not from—us."

"I don't follow this. Why did you not come to the boathouse?"

"My fear—and your trouble has been fear too. I’ve feared the consequences of what I—what I feel for you. And you’ve feared that I feel strongly for Victor, instead of for you.” Sherlock laughed mirthlessly. “Why did you go and say you love me?"

"Why—why do you call me John?"

"Oh let's give over talking. Here—" and he held out his hand. John took it, and they knew at that moment the greatest triumph ordinary man can win. Physical love means reaction, being panic in essence, and Sherlock saw now how natural it was that their primitive abandonment at Penge should have led to peril. They knew too little about each other—and too much. Hence fear. Hence cruelty. And he rejoiced because he had understood John’s fear through his own—glimpsing, not for the first time, the genius who hides in man's tormented soul. Not as a hero, but as a comrade, had he stood up to the bluster, and found childishness behind it, and behind that something else. Presently the other spoke. Spasms of remorse and apology broke him; he was as one who throws off a poison. Then, gathering health, he began to tell his friend everything, everything. No one knew he was in London—Penge thought he was at his father's, his father at Penge—it had been difficult, very. But while he spoke his arm was gaining Sherlock's. They deserved such a caress—the feeling was strange. Words died away, abruptly to recommence.

It was John who ventured them. "Stop with me."

Sherlock swerved and their muscles clipped. By now they were in love with one another consciously.

"Sleep the night with me. I know a place."

"I can't, I've an engagement," said Sherlock, his heart beating violently. A formal Yarders’ dinner party awaited him of the sort that brought work to his nascent consultancy and that he couldn't possibly cut. He had almost forgotten its existence. "I have to leave you now and get changed. But look here: John, be reasonable. Meet me another evening instead—any day."

"Can't come to London again—not before my ship. I’d lose the last of my pay, and the lads would rip me up."

"What does it matter if they do?"

"What's your engagement matter?"

They were silent again. Then Sherlock said in affectionate and decided tones, "You’re right. To Hell with it," and they passed on together in the rain.

* * * * *

"John, wake up."

An arm twitched.

"Time we talked plans."

He snuggled closer, more awake than he pretended, warm, golden, happy. Happiness overwhelmed Sherlock too. He moved in John’s embrace, felt the answering grip, and forgot what he wanted to say. Light drifted in upon them from the outside world where it was still raining. A strange hotel, a casual refuge protected them a little longer.

Hours later: "Time to get up, John. It's morning."

"Get up then."

"How can I, the way you hold me?"

"Look at you fidget! I'll teach you to fidget." He wasn't angry any more, nor jealous. The British Museum had cured that. This was holiday, London with Sherlock, all troubles over, and he wanted to drowse and waste time, and tease and make love.

Sherlock wanted the same, what's pleasanter, but the oncoming future distracted him, the gathering light made cosiness unreal. Something had to be said and settled. O, for the night that was ending, for the sleep and the wakefulness, the toughness and tenderness mixed, the sweet temper, the safety in darkness. Would such a night ever return?

"All right, Sherlock?" John asked—for he had sighed. "You comfortable? Rest your head on me more, the way you like. That's it. Don't worry. Please don’t worry."

Yes, he was in luck, no doubt of it. Watson had proved honest and kind. He was lovely to be with, a treasure, a charmer, a find in a thousand, the longed-for dream. But could it last?

"I love being with you like this," Sherlock’s lips so close now that it was scarcely speech.

John murmured a soft reply: "Who'd have thought.... First time I saw you I thought, ‘I want him.' Just like that... ‘Wouldn’t we be something, together.’ And it is so."

"Yes. That's why we've got to fight."

"Who wants to fight?” John was still dozy, giddy with love.

"All the world's against us. We've got to pull ourselves together and make plans, while we can."

"What d'you mean?"

"We can't allow things to go wrong and hurt us again the way they did down at Penge."

John suddenly scrubbed at his eyes with the sun-roughened back of a hand and said, "Don't talk to me about Penge! You've no idea what it’s been like. Treated like dirt by the man I thought you loved. I went flaming mad when you didn't turn up at the boathouse. I’ve never been so— It’s never been like this, for me."

He went silent, his voice dying away into sadness as though truth had risen to the surface of the water and was unbearable.

"We'll meet in your boathouse yet," Sherlock said.

"No, we won't." He pushed him away, then heaved, pulled him close, put forth violence, and embraced as if the world was ending. "You'll remember that anyway." He got out and looked down out of the grayness, his arms hanging empty. It was as if he wished to be remembered thus.

"Where've my clothes gone?" He seemed dazed. "It's so late. I haven’t got a razor even, I didn't reckon staying the night. ... I ought—I got to catch a train at once or the lad’s will be thinking things."

"Let them."

"My goodness, if they saw us just now."

"Well, they didn't."

John stood brooding for a moment. "Tomorrow's Thursday, isn't it? Friday's the packing, Saturday the Normannia sails from Southampton."

"You mean that you and I shan't meet again after now."

"That's right."

And if it wasn't still raining! Wet morning after yesterday's downpour, wet on the roofs and the Museum, at home and on the greenwood. Controlling himself and choosing his words very carefully, Sherlock said, "This is just what I want to talk about. Why don't we arrange so as we do meet again?"

"How do you mean?"

"Why don't you stay on in England?"

John spun round, naked and half terrified.

"Stay?" he snarled. "Of all the bloody rubbish I ever heard. Stay on as a servant for the rest of my life?"

"It's a chance in a thousand we've met, we'll never have the chance again and you know it. Stay with me. We love each other."

“I daresay. But stay with you and how and where? Surely you see that it’s impossible! Where would we live?"

"Together."

"Oh, yes? And how bloody long do you imagine it would last before the law sat up and took notice? The police are your bread and butter, Sherlock! What about your job?”

"I shall chuck it."

"No. You love it. You can't chuck it. Certainly not for the likes of me."

"I prefer to make other arrangements," said Sherlock gently. "You can do anything once you know what it is." He gazed at the grayish light that was becoming yellowish. Nothing surprised him in this talk. What he could not conjecture was its outcome. "We can find work together," he suggested.

"What work?"

"Doesn’t matter. I don’t care, do you? We’ll figure something out. We’ll invent a profession!"

"Invent it and starve."

"No. There'll be enough money to keep us while we have a look round. I'm not a fool, nor are you. We won't be starving. I've thought out that much, while I was awake in the night and you weren't."

There was a pause. John went on sadly: "It wouldn't work, Sherlock. Ruin of us both, can't you see? You same as myself."

"I don't know. Might be. Mightn't. We can’t know the future. I know what we do today. We clear out of here and get a decent breakfast and we go down to Penge or whatever you want and see those lads of yours. You tell them you've changed your mind about emigrating and are taking a job with Mr Holmes instead. I'll come with you. I don't care. I'll see anyone, face anything. If they want to guess, let them. I'm fed up. Cancel your ticket, I'll repay for it and that's our start of getting free. Then we'll do the next thing, and so on, and so on. It's a risk, so's everything else, and we'll only live once."

John laughed cynically and continued to dress. "You talk like someone who's never had to earn his living," he said, “someone who’s never gone hungry. I won’t be a servant my whole life, Sherlock. I won’t do it. I can make something of myself in India. I can become someone, same as you are. It’s a pity the ship leaves so soon, but we must face up to reality.”

Sherlock saw through the brassiness to the misery behind it, but what was the use of this insight? No amount of insight would prevent the Normannia from sailing. He had lost—and the worst of it was that John was right. Surely it would be better for him, for his life’s ambitions, to go to India as intended. Suffering was certain for him, though it might soon end for John; when he got out to his new life he would forget his escapade with a gentleman and in time he would marry. He was pragmatic. He was correct. Meanwhile, John had already crammed his graceful body into his hideous blue suit. His face stuck out of it pale with emotion, his hands sun-browned. He plastered his hair flat. "Well, I'm off," he said, and as if that wasn't enough said, "Pity we ever met, really, if you come to think of it."

Sherlock looked away from him as he unbolted the door.

"You paid for this room in advance, didn't you? They won't stop me downstairs?"

"Yes, yes. It’s all right." He heard the door shut and he was alone. He waited for the beloved to return. Inevitable that wait. Then his eyes began to smart, and he knew from experience what was coming. Presently he could control himself. He got up and went out, did some telephoning and explanations, placated the Yarders, apologized to his host, got himself shaved and trimmed up, and went off to find Lestrade. Work would console him. Nothing had changed in his life. Nothing remained in it. He was back with his loneliness as it had been before Victor, as it was after Victor, and would now be for ever. He had failed, and that wasn't the saddest: he had seen John fail. In a way they were one person. Love had failed. 


	6. Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes finally discovers the advantages of caring.

When the appointed day arrived, Sherlock went down to Southampton to see the Normannia off. It was a ridiculous thing to do—useless, undignified, risky, and he had not the least intention of going when he left home. It was an action rooted less in conscious decision than in instinct. When suddenly the hunger that tormented him nightly came into the open and demanded its prey, he forgot everything except John’s face and body, and took the only means of seeing them. He did not want to speak to his lover or to hear his voice or to touch him—all that part was over—only to recapture his image before it vanished for ever. Poor wretched John! Who could blame him, how could he have acted differently? But oh, the wretchedness it was causing them both.

He got down to the boat in a dream, and awoke there to a new sort of discomfort: John was nowhere in sight, the stewards were busy and insolent. "Watson’s not aboard yet, but his kit is," one said. "Interested to see it? It’ll cost."

Sherlock walked off in disgust. He filled a pipe with the tobacco that he had smoked for the last six years, and watched Romance wither. John was not a hero or god, but a man embedded in society like himself, and this journey to India would make him far happier than life in exile with Sherlock ever could.

They ought not to have spent that night together in the hotel. It had now raised hopes that were too high. They should have parted with that handshake in the rain. A morbid fascination kept him among the porters and the dock hands, listening to their vulgarity. As he brooded a quiet voice said, "Good morning, Sherlock.”

He could not reply. The surprise was too complete. It was Mycroft Holmes—who never left his club if he could help it, and certainly never attended the docks.

“Come to see young Watson off, have you?” Mycroft asked. Water stretched, glistening around them, edged by the New Forest. To Sherlock the beauty of the morning seemed ominous of disaster.

Sherlock cleared his throat. “No,” he said honestly. “I’ll not speak to him again. I only wanted—only wanted to…” Again, he was struck dumb. How to explain? His actions made no sense, even to himself. “But why are _you_ here?” he asked with sudden alarm. “Has something happened? Is—”

“No, no. Calm yourself,” Mycroft said, taking his arm and pulling him into an alcove between two bustling storehouses. “I am only here to speak a little with you, if you’ll listen. To be frank, I have been far from easy about you, brother. I have always tried to do my best for you: to guide and protect you, to nurture your mind, to instill healthy habits, and to allow you room to develop into your own kind of man. It is a difficult task to balance, and I fear—” here Sherlock snorted, but Mycroft continued, undisturbed, “I fear I have misjudged certain pieces of advice. Children are more impressionable than the outsider supposes. For good and for evil, they absorb their elders’ words uncritically, and those words become their own. Sherlock, I have lately been considering whether some of my words to you, spoken in earnest desire of aiding you, might in fact have had the opposite effect."

Sherlock felt himself to be a child again, defenceless and vulnerable. Never before had Mycroft spoken to him in this manner.

Mycroft continued, “I told you once, many years ago, that caring is not an advantage for men such as you and I. I told you that we must fight to master our base impulses, and extinguish all thoughts of passionate friendship in order to ensure our safety. I even advised you to shield yourself by taking a wife.”

“I remember,” Sherlock said. He had begun to tremble.

Mycroft nodded. “I stand by that advice as both prudent and wise in a general sense. In your particular case, however, it has caused harm. I have seen it in your misery these past years. I have thought long and hard upon the matter, and have concluded that my advice to you was ill-judged, given your particular constitution and sensibilities. I apologize that I did not foresee it. I cannot give my blessing to this endeavour with Watson, exactly, but I shall do what I can for you. I am not without resources. I would only see you happy, Sherlock.”

Sherlock felt utter vertigo. He was a child again; he was back in the smoking-room at home with Victor; he was in Mycroft’s study; he was kissing John; he was spinning; his mind was chaos.

But then suddenly the bells were ringing. Mycroft gasped his arm warmly, then turned and strode away. Sherlock faced the ship, and he could see with extraordinary distinctness the masses of men sorting themselves, and he knew that John was not among them. The afternoon had broken into glory. White clouds sailed over the golden waters and woods. How negligible everything had become, beside the beautiful weather and fresh air.

Sherlock felt drunk with upheaval and joy. He watched the steamer move, and suddenly she reminded him of a Viking's funeral boat that he had read about as a boy. The parallel was false, yet she was heroic, she was carrying away death. She warped out from the quay, swung into the channel to the sound of cheers, and she was off at last, a sacrifice, a splendour, leaving smoke that thinned into the crisp air, and ripples that died against the wooded shores. For a long time he gazed after her, then turned to England. His journey was nearly over. He was bound for his new home. He had become his own man, truly, and now it was for John to bring out the hero in him. He knew what the call was, and what his answer must be. They must live as outsiders, without close relations; they must work and stick to each other till death. But England belonged to them. That, besides companionship, was their reward. Her air and sky were theirs, not the timorous millions' who own stuffy little boxes, but never their own souls. In his excitement he felt that John was close to him. He wasn't, couldn't be, he was elsewhere in the splendour and had to be found.

Without a moment's hesitation he set out for the boat-house at Penge. Those words had got into his blood, they were part of John, and of his own promise in that last desperate embrace. They were all he had to go by. He left Southampton as he had come to it—instinctively—and he felt that not merely things wouldn't go wrong this time but that they daren't, and that the universe had been put in its place. A little local train did its duty, a gorgeous horizon still glowed, and inflamed cloudlets which flared when the main glory faded, and there was even enough light for him to walk up from the station at Penge through quiet fields.

He entered the estate at its lower end, through a gap in the hedge, and it struck him for the first time how derelict it was, how unfit to set standards or control the future. In the haze of the afternoon light, a bird called, animals scuttled, he hurried on until he saw the pond glimmering, and black against it the trysting place, and heard the water sipping. He was here, or almost here. Still confident, he lifted up his voice and called John.

There was no answer.

He called again.

Silence. He had miscalculated.

"Likely enough," he thought, and instantly took himself in hand. Whatever happened he must not collapse. He had done that enough over Victor, and to no effect, and to collapse in this graying wilderness might mean going mad. To be strong, to keep calm, and to trust—they were still the one hope. But the sudden disappointment revealed to him how exhausted he was physically. He had been on the run ever since early morning, ravaged by every sort of emotion, and he was ready to drop. In a little while he would decide what next should be done, but now his head was splitting, every bit of him ached or was useless and he must rest. The boathouse offered itself conveniently for that purpose.

He went in and found his lover asleep. John lay upon piled up cushions, just visible in the last dying of the day. When he woke, rumpled and warm, he did not seem at all surprised, and fondled Sherlock's arm between his hands before he spoke.

"So you got the wire," he said.

"What wire?"

"The wire I sent off this morning to your house, telling you..." He yawned, "Excuse me, I'm a bit tired, one thing and another … Telling you to come here without fail."

Since Sherlock did not speak, indeed could not, he added, "And now we shan't be parted. Never again. All that is finished."

And Sherlock made the only answer he could: he took John’s face gently between his hands and kissed him, again and again, until John rose up beneath him and pulled him down into his embrace.

* * * * *

Victor was in his study reading when Archie announced, "Mr Holmes is in the garden, sir." The hour was extremely late, and the night dark; all traces of a magnificent sunset had disappeared from the sky. Victor could see nothing from the porch though he heard abundant noises; his friend, who had refused to come in, was kicking up the gravel, and throwing pebbles against the shrubs and walls.

"Hullo Sherlock, come in. Why this thusness?" he asked, a little annoyed, and not troubling to smile since his face was in shadow. "Good to see you back, hope you're better. Unluckily I'm a bit occupied, but the Russet Room's not. Come in and sleep here as before. So glad to see you."

"I've only a few minutes, Victor. I’m not stopping." Sherlock tossed another pebble against the wall.

"Look here man, that's ridiculous." He advanced into the darkness hospitably, still holding his book. "Anne'll be furious with me if you don't stay." Then he detected a core of blackness in the surrounding gloom, and, suddenly uneasy, exclaimed, "I hope nothing's wrong."

"Pretty well everything. At least, you’d think so."

Now Victor put other thoughts aside and prepared to sympathize, though he wished the appeal had come when he was less busy. His sense of proportion supported him. He led the way to the deserted alley behind the laurels, where evening primroses gleamed, and embossed with faint yellow the walls of night. Here they would be most solitary. Feeling for a bench, he reclined full length on it, put his hands behind his head, and said, "I'm at your service, but my advice is sleep the night here, and consult Anne in the morning."

“I don't want your advice. I certainly don’t want hers."

"Well, as you like of course. Anne has almost uncanny insight, though, and she’s no shrinking violet. You can tell her nearly anything."

The blossoms opposite disappeared and reappeared, and again Victor felt that his friend, swaying to and fro in front of them, was essential night. A voice said, "Tell me, shall I tell her this? I'm in love with your gamekeeper"—a remark so unexpected and meaningless to him that he said, "Who?" and blinked stupidly.

"Watson. I’m in love with him."

"Hush," cried Victor, with a glance at darkness. Reassured, he said stiffly, "What a grotesque announcement."

"Most grotesque," the voice echoed, "but I felt after all I owe you I ought to come and tell you. I want to be truthful, when I can."

Victor had only grasped the minimum. He supposed "Watson" was a _jagon de parler_ , as one might say "Ganymede," for such intimacy with a social inferior was unthinkable to him. As it was, he felt depressed, and offended, for he had assumed Sherlock was dedicated to striving for normalcy. "You don’t ‘owe’ me this, man! Stop it. You must not dally with morbid thoughts if you wish to improve yourself as I have. I'm so disappointed to hear you talk of yourself like that. You gave me to understand that the land through the looking-glass was behind you at last, when we thrashed out the subject that night in the Russet Room."

"When you brought yourself to kiss me," added Sherlock, with deliberate bitterness.

"Don't allude to that," he flashed. Then he relapsed into intellectualism. "Sherlock—oh, I'm more sorry for you than I can possibly say, and I do, do beg you to resist the return of this obsession. It'll leave you for good if you do. Occupation, fresh air, your friends...."

"As I said before, I'm not here to get advice, nor to talk about thoughts and ideas either. I'm flesh and blood, if you'll condescend to such low things—"

"Yes, quite right; I'm a frightful theorist, I know."

"—and I’ll mention John by his name. He’s flesh and blood as well."

It recalled to both of them the situation of a year back, but it was Victor who winced at the example now. "I hardly matters, now. John Watson is in point of fact no longer in my service or even in England. He sailed for India this very day. Go on though. I'm reconciled to reopening the subject if I can be of the least help."

Sherlock blew out his cheeks, and began picking the flowerets off a tall stalk.

They vanished one after another, like candles that the night has extinguished.

"I have shared with John," he said after deep thought.

"Shared what?"

"All I have. Which includes my body."

Victor sprang up with a whimper of disgust. He wanted to smite the monster, and flee, but he was civilized, and wanted it feebly. After all, they were Oxford men ... pillars of society both; he must not show violence. And he did not; he remained quiet and helpful to the very end. But his thin, sour disapproval, his dogmatism, the stupidity of his heart, revolted Sherlock, who could only have respected hatred.

"I put it offensively," he went on, "but I must make sure you understand. John slept with me in the Russet Room the last time I was here."

"Sherlock—oh, good God!"

"Also in town. Also—" here he stopped.

Even in his nausea Victor turned to a generalization—it was part of the mental vagueness induced by his marriage. "But surely—we agreed! The sole excuse for any relationship between men is that it remain purely platonic."

"I don’t agree. Not anymore." Yes, that was the reason of his visit. It was the closing of a book that would never be read again, and better close such a book than leave it lying about to get dirtied. The volume of their past must be restored to its shelf, and here, here was the place, amid darkness and perishing flowers. He owed it to John also. He could suffer no mixing of the old in the new. All compromise was perilous, because furtive, and, having finished his confession, he must disappear from the world that had brought him up. "I must tell you too what he did," he went on, trying to keep down his joy. "He's sacrificed his career for my sake … without a guarantee I'll give up anything for him. I don't know whether that's ‘platonic’ of him or not, but it's what he did."

"How sacrifice?"

"I've just been to see him off—he wasn't there—"

"Watson missed his boat?" cried the squire with indignation. "These people are impossible." Then he stopped, faced by the future. "Sherlock, Sherlock," he said with some tenderness. "Sherlock, _quo vadis_? You're going mad. You've lost all sense of—May I ask whether you intend—"

"No, you may not ask," interrupted the other. "You belong to the past. I'll tell you everything up to this moment—not a word beyond."

"Sherlock, Sherlock, I care a little bit for you, you know, or I wouldn't stand what you have told me."

Sherlock opened his hand. Luminous petals appeared in it. "You care for me a little bit, I do think," he admitted, "but I can't hang all my life on a little bit. You don't. You hang yours on Anne. You don't worry whether your relation with her is platonic or not, you only know it's big enough to hang a life on. I can't hang mine on to the five minutes you spare me from time to time. You'll do anything for me except see me. That's been it for this whole year of Hell. You'll make me free of the house, and take endless bother to marry me off, because that puts me off your hands. You do care a little for me, I know"— for Victor had protested—"but nothing to speak of, and you don't love me. I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now—and he's mine."

"Who taught you to talk like this?" Victor gasped.

"You, if anyone."

"I? It's appalling you should attribute such thoughts to me," pursued Victor. He was appalled. Had his influence corrupted Sherlock’s intellect? He could not realize that he and Sherlock were alike descended from the Victor of two years ago, the one by respectability, the other by rebellion, nor that they must differentiate further. It was a cesspool, and one breath from it in public could ruin him. But he must not shrink from his duty. He must rescue his old friend. A feeling of heroism stole over him; and he began to wonder how Watson could be silenced and whether he would prove extortionate. It was too late to discuss ways and means now, so he invited Sherlock to dine with him the following week in his club up in town. A laugh answered. He had always liked his friend's laugh, and at such a moment the soft rumble of it reassured him; it suggested happiness and security. "That's right," he said, and went so far as to stretch his hand into a bush of laurels. "That's better than making me a long set speech, which convinces neither yourself nor me." His last words were "Next Wednesday, say at 7.45. Dinner-jacket's enough, as you know."

They were his last words, because Sherlock had disappeared thereabouts, leaving no trace of his presence except a little pile of the petals of the evening primrose, which mourned from the ground like an expiring fire. To the end of his life Victor was not sure of the exact moment of departure, and with the approach of old age he grew uncertain whether the moment had yet occurred. The Blue Room would glimmer, ferns undulate. Out of some external Oxford his friend began beckoning to him, clothed in the sun, and shaking out the scents and sounds of the May term. But at the time he was merely offended at a discourtesy, and compared it with similar lapses in the past. He did not realize that this was the end, without twilight or compromise, that he should never cross Sherlock's track again, nor speak to those who had seen him. He waited for a little in the alley, then returned to the house to devise some method of concealing the truth from Anne and from the rest of the world—leaving Sherlock to his John, in the greenwood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading along with me this summer! This is likely to be my last entry in the Summer Serials collection, and it's been such a fun and valuable experience for me. Massive thanks to redscudery for organizing and administering and encouraging us all. xoxoxox


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